Disney has shut down LucasArts—the game publishing subsidiary of LucasFilm—and ceased all upcoming ‘Star Wars’ games.
In an official statement from Disney, it read, “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. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”
This means all current games in development such as ‘Star Wars 1313’, which impressed at 2012’s E3, have been scrapped.
Future games will probably be developed by third-party studios or by Disney Interactive.
According to CNET, they reported that LucasFilm has actually been looking to move LucasArts to a licensed model for quite some time, even before Disney bought LucasFilm and all its subsidiaries last October.
A large part of it was to reduce the “financial risk associated with developing ambitious and expensive games,” wrote CNET.
Last month, Disney canceled the popular cartoon show, ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’.
What do you think of Disney’s recent shutdowns?
[via Game Informer and CNET]