How LucasArts Fell Apart

[MusicallyInspired]

Not sure if this has been posted, or how new this is. Filled with a lot of interesting information that basically confirms what I'd guessed all along. The higher ups just never cared about games. I'm truly sad to read about what 1313 was going to be and what it didn't have the chance to become. This kind of behaviour is so rampant in the entire gaming industry today and is why I still kind of believe that the market will crash again as a result. You can only destroy good projects and screw over loyal fanbases so long before finally they'll wake up and get sick of it. At least, I'd hope so. Good developers and names that were gaming's biggest and best disappear as a result and in their place we have snobby douchebag companies (really, the suits and higher ups/execs) that couldn't give a care about any of it as long as it follows marketing research enough to not be too big a risk so they can make money. It's truly sad and astonishing that this type of leadership, the lies, the betrayal, and the apathy is allowed to continue. It's truly disgusting and I almost feel like we should all be boycotting it entirely until it fixes itself. But I know that's just being naive as to how the industry works and, really, has always worked. It's just that every now and then good things are allowed to happen (Monkey Island, Duke Nukem 3D, Space Quest, tons of other great titles and franchises) and slip under the radar, past the clutches of the great hungry corporate monster and the greedy intruding fingers of the manipulators and meddlers.

It's all so disgusting. I'm glad I've never been buying that many games lately in the past few years. I'd shudder to think that I'd actually purchased Sim City after what happened to that. I'm too afraid to buy anything anymore because you never know what will happen.

http://kotaku.com/ho...part-1401731043

A particular quote of painful news:

In news that will certainly crush anyone who enjoyed LucasArts-branded adventure games, the team at LucasArts Singapore was working on a remastered version of the classic point-and-click game Day of the Tentacle, according to three people familiar with that project. Like the special editions of the first two Monkey Island games, released in 2009 and 2010, the remastered Day of the Tentacle would be pseudo-3D, with remade background art and cut-scenes redone to run at 30 frames per second.7

Although this Day of the Tentacle remake was never officially greenlit, two sources say it was almost finished. One person familiar with the project pegs it at 80% done. But it was never approved, and the company's higher-ups had no interest in continuing to make what they called "legacy" titles like this one. So the game remains unreleased—and perhaps there's a near-finished Day of the Tentacle HD sitting on a shelf somewhere in Singapore, never to be touched again.8

It's devastating. Day of the Tentacle, a hilarious point-n-click adventure that did the whole three protagonists thing years before Grand Theft Auto even existed, is almost impossible to purchase legally today. This is a game that deserves a digital re-release.

"For many involved this was a dream project," said one person who worked on the game. "But sadly, like many, many LucasArts games in development, it never saw the light of day."

[FamousAdventurer77]

Speaking from a business POV, if they're not using the IPs they should just sell them off to indie devs who will actually use them, and/or engage the original creators. After, indies are the ones who seriously do all the risk-taking in game development today. AAA will never take risk on a frontline title because they tie up such ludicrous amounts into development that they simply can't risk a game banking less than eight figures. We know as hardcore fans that Day of the Tentacle would make money-- not Star Wars money, but money. Much more money than most indies have to work with. But it'd be the "taking our $1,000/hour lawyers to lunch" budget for frontline devs yet still considered too much of a risk.

Why are they going to let the copyrights sitting there gathering dust? The IP valuation really isn't that high if it made a lot of money 15-20+ years ago but is just not now. I don't understand the IP hoarding mindset if they're not going to USE them!

And...if a Day of the Tentacle remake was 80% done, just finish it already and let the fans get it! If the work's been done and not that much remains to have a completed, marketable game...just release it already. Then merchandise it-- wouldn't tentacle figures and plushies rule? Outsource the merchandising to another company (like Himalaya...) and take a cut if they don't want to take risks with the money they're hoarding, merch WILL sell. Sell the existing games on GOG and Steam, demand for them is there. The latter will take NO risk or work at all on Disney's part.

Funny how the people who go to these top-tier business schools for MBAs to supposedly learn how to make lots of money heading these companies really miss some dead obvious ways to do so.

[Nipples]

Someone needs to leak some shots of what they had done for DOTT. Hopefully the voices didn't have to be redone.

[chucklas]

I would guess they don't sell the IPs because if someone does make a game, and it does well, it will make them look bad for not doing it themselves, and it would allow smaller companies to get succuess and perhaps chip into their own profits.  Just a thought.

[MusicallyInspired]

If that's true then why aren't they using them? If they consider them useless they shouldn't be holding on to them. Which is it?

[FamousAdventurer77]

To artificially inflate the balance sheet to look more attractive to investors...except that an IP that was earning money over a decade ago will not be worth nearly the same as it could be if it was earning money now, in the form of selling the old games, making new ones, merchandising it, and so forth.

Hence the thought process makes no sense!