Disney’s LucasArts halts video game development
The Walt Disney Co.’s recently acquired Lucasfilm Ltd. subsidiary announced on Wednesday that its video game unit will no longer develop games.
LucasArts, which was founded in 1982, is best known for a slew of “Star Wars” video games. Lucasfilm said in a statement that the company will now look to license its intellectual property rather than create video games in-house.
“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality ‘Star Wars’ games,” Lucasfilm said in a statement.
As a result of the decision, the company said there have been “layoffs across the organization,” though Lucasfilm did not say how many employees at San Francisco-based LucasArts would be affected.
LucasArts had been developing the video games “Star Wars: First Assault” and “Star Wars 1313.” Production of those games has been halted.
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Among the recent “Star Wars” video games made by LucasArts were “Kinect Star Wars” for the Xbox 360 and “Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars,” which was released on multiple platforms. In 2008, the company had a hit with “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.”
In December, Disney completed its $4.06-billion acquisition of Lucasfilm.
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