Will LucasArts ever rekindle the adventure genre?

[odwyer1980]

I was just looking on the LucasArts site and noticed it really does go out of its way to promote the Star Wars genre.

Look at the main page http://www.lucasarts.com/

It's like it's forgotten or abandoned any other kind of game, focusing solely on the Star Wars franchise. Everything else seems to have been swept aside.

Out of interest, I clicked on the classic PC games section, to see it still mentions games like the Monkey Island series, Grim Fandango, Outlaws, Full Throttle, Sam & Max & Indiana Jones to name but a few.

Do you think this situation is just temporary due to George Lucas making Episodes 1, 2 and 3 from 1999-2005.

Do you think this is why they've hardly focused on any other genre?

Do you think that now the Star Wars trilogy has finally come to an end, theyll get back to what they were good at and thats making top notch adventure/point & click games, or do you think the days of playing such games are well and truly over?

Whats your opinion on this situation?

[scotch]

It's been this way for a number of years.Ã,  Lucasarts just don't make original adventure games anymore so they have no reason to promote them.Ã,  Not since Sam & Max 2 and Full Throttle 2 were cancelled.
Now that the last (hopefully) Star Wars movie has been made perhaps they won't be able to ride on the hype from the movies anymore and will be forced to try making new franchises... but... the whole culture there has changed, all their adventure designers are gone to Double Fine, Telltale and working on their own things.  I don't think they will ever be a major adventure game company again.

[Phemar]

I don't they'll move on from Star Wars for at least another 7 years or something ... There's just too much cash atm.

And if they do ever move on, I don't think they'll rekindle the adventure game genre ... probably move on to third person action games or something ...

EDIT: And their 'classics' section doesn't even contain half the real classics. Pfffff, fancy calling a Star Wars game a classic!

[Mr Flibble]

"LucasArts" is just a company. All the people within that company who actually made good games left already.

I wasn't that interested in Bone, but after I saw the trailer I recognized the style. The monsters (sorry, don't know the names) look like something from Grim Fandango. Its marvelous.

[Al_Ninio]

The monsters (sorry, don't know the names) look like something from Grim Fandango. Its marvelous.

... The monsters are based on the monsters from the Bone comic books, which started being published in 1991. I'm afraid that any similiarity to Grim Fandango, at least style-wise, is completely incidental.

[Redwall]

According to various news reports (search game or Indy news sites for them), LucasArts will switch from pumping out generic Star Wars games to pumping out generic Star Wars games and Indiana Jones games based on the new movie. Since the new movie will simply be delayed forever, they will be able to keep such a strategy running for quite a while.

[BerserkerTails]

And their 'classics' section doesn't even contain half the real classics. Pfffff, fancy calling a Star Wars game a classic!

Well, I consider most of Lucasarts first Star Wars games classics. X-Wing, Tie Fighter, and Dark Forces I would call classic. The other ones vary from "Pretty Fun" to "Abysmal".

[edmundito]

No.

[TheYak]

It's rather one-dimensional to say that only the older adventure games from LucasArts are "classics" and the flight-sim or FPS types don't have any merit.  Ah, but to each his own.

LucasArts got a couple new managers nearly a year ago.  The finance manager was hired in order to try and turn it around.  LucasArts was running in the red for awhile and Sam & Max 2/Full Throttle were two of the projects that promised the least amount of money from their investment.  The people working on the adventure projects were laid off (most), transferred (a few) or quit after the cancellation announcements (the remainder). 

I have to admit, business-wise it was the smart thing to do.  I don't like it, and I think they've lost what little personality they had left.  I enjoy (ed) some of the Star Wars games: Tie Fighter, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight Series, Knights of the Old Republic, but it's lost some of its charm for me since the games are becoming less and less original, without introducing anything worthwhile to a genre and becoming mainstream clones with Star Wars characters.  Trying to purchase anything older (particularly adventure) from them isn't worth the effort (or, in most cases, possible).  Better to go with eBay, obtain a copy of a desired game, and put a couple bucks in some fellow-gamer's pocket.

[big brother]

"Lucasarts" and "business smarts" don't belong in the same sentence.

Take this example. By the time Sam and Max 2 was canceled, it was nearly in alpha/beta form. This meant that the second most expensive part of the production was nearly complete (the most expensive part would be the marketing).

A little bit of time passed, then they entered negotiations with Telltale over the project. Roughly a month before Lucasart's contract with Steve Purcell expired (the license for the use of his characters), Telltale offered to buy the remainder of the project from Lucasarts. They refused. The contract expired. Now all Lucasarts has to show for their "business smarts" is an unfinished project that they blew a development budget on and can no longer legally release.

I mean, even a company run by unimaginative accountants would have cashed out, selling Sam and Max 2 even for a pittance. It's not like they will be able to do anything with the project in the future.

The teams LEC laid off can form their own company, create a new contract with Purcell, and make their own Sam and Max game if they so desired. By cancelling the project, LEC now knows the minimum number of their potential customers for Sam and Max 2 (probably only half, with volunteer bias and all). Talk about an expensive way to conduct market research!

I can't believe Lucasarts cited a game that they PUBLISHED as an example of their creativity (Mercenaries). That'd be like me buying a picture from a sidewalk artist, signing my initials next to his, then running around saying "Look how clever and artistic I am! Shove a tulip up my butt and call me Andy fucking Warhol."

There are only so many Star Wars games the market can handle before it'll be ready to move on to better franchises. Fuck Lucasarts.

EDIT: By Telltale, I meant Bad Brain.

[Mr Flibble]

... The monsters are based on the monsters from the Bone comic books...

Oh I know, but I mean the way they are modelled.

[Ali]

While the Lucas Arts webpage opens Star Wars games a-go-go, the Microids homepage includes a statement of their philosophy including this passage:

Video games should push the boundaries of creation and inspire those who play them. Much like cinema, which has been enriched by the influence of art and literature, video games must draw from other creative spheres in order to find inspiration.

(http://www.microids.com/index_en.html)

We shouldn't look expectantly towards Lucas Arts because all of our heroes used to work for that company. People who have a real interest in producing adventure games exist elsewhere.

[TheYak]

Yep.  Instead of ranting and raving about the death of S&M2 and FT2, we should've realized that the cause was hopeless and had a mass funeral for LucasArts.  Interesting that LucasArts was still in the very creative stages when it was Lucasfilm EC.. after adopting the LA moniker, it was only a matter of years before the creativity was used up. 

I agree with Ali.  Headshaking about LucasArts gets one nowhere - looking to other companies (The Adventure Company, Double-Fine, et al) provides the only optimism.  It's not just LA, many Lucasfilm employees have been seeking other employment due to the current direction of the company.

[Scummbuddy]

This meant that the second most expensive part of the production was nearly complete (the most expensive part would be the marketing).

And the funny thing is, is that if they had gone back on their cancelation, they would have all the free publicity they could handle. Internet sites, games magazines all were in love with it, and were distraught when the game was cancelled.

The 31292 signers of the internet petition sure seem that if you sold the game at 50 bucks, plus had those installments sold later, you'd make a pretty penny off of it.

[Mr Flibble]

What ever happened to that Sam and Max licence anyway.
I heard rumours that after the telltale talks fell through, bad brain went straight to Purcell.
Did anything ever come of that?

I think we can thank LucasArts for loosing their creativity and firing their best guys. Since this happened, and the ex-employees set up their own companies, we can theoritcally expect more games than if LEC was making them one by one.

[CoffeeBob]

LucasArts is nothing but a Star Wars games-pumping shit company nowadays.
I can't understand how they went from such a good company to what it is today.

[Mr Jake]

Money.

[Dave Gilbert]

I remember hearing roughly the same things about Sierra not to long ago.  Ah, the cycle of life.

[kec]

LucasArts is interested in MONEY. No one will make games just because people will like them, but everybody will make games because they will be bought. Adventure games are
considered boring by todays generation of gamers. By gamers I mean idiots who play 
"Kill, kill, kill, shoot, shoot, shoot!!!" games with lots of gore and brainless action. Where`s the fun in that? If a majority of people would like to sit in front of their PC for a full hour and THINK about clues and inventory to solve a puzzle, LucasArts would make abot 13 of these games in a year, and if we would be lucky some of those games might even be some mediocre crap.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I'm reminded of this excellent retrospective written by a former lucasarts employee, where he basically details alot of the ins and outs of lucasarts as well as George Lucas' own destructive management methodology-
http://www.fudco.com/habitat/archives/000021.html