What's Happened To Lucasarts?

When Disney bought Lucasfilm back in November, there was a collective cheer and punching of the air from fans across the globe. Except for fans of one particular area, fans of Lucasarts. Straight away I was starting to hear concerns for the studio that brought us classics such as Monkey Island, X-Wing, Sam & Max and The Force Unleashed. The reason for that concern? Disney's track record with game studios and how many had been shut down or "restructured" once acquired by the big studio. In the last two years three big studios all acquired by Disney have been closed down.
Propaganda Games
best known for Turok restructered by Disney and most of the staff layed off.
Black Rock Games
best known for Pure and Split Second bought by Disney Interactive and one year later closed down to "realign its business strategies."
Junction Point
Best known for Epic Mickey recently closed down in the last month. Disney who acquired the company in 2007 said regarding the closure, “These changes are part of our ongoing effort to address the fast-evolving gaming platforms and marketplace and to align resources against our key priorities. We’re extremely grateful to Warren Spector and the Junction Point team for their creative contributions to Disney with Disney Epic Mickey and Disney Epic Mickey 2.”

I can see why fans of Lucasarts are feeling a little bit jittery. I decided to head over to Lucasarts website. Their news feed stopped updating half way through last year. In fact on their main page they are still advertising E3 for 2012 and the arrival of Star Wars Kinect to stores. Their Twitter feed, once an incredibly active account has now posted half a dozen tweets in the last six months. Their Star Wars 1313 site hasn't been updated since it went live and news of that game has become non existent. They practically hold no official presence on Facebook too. Their official Star Wars 1313 Facebook page has not been officially updated by the studio since last year.

Here's why I'm concerned. The fact that a big games studio like Lucasarts stops updating all their web presence half way through last year, BEFORE Disney take over smells to me like the company may have already been in trouble. With Disney taking over and with their track record with game studios this makes me along with other fans very nervous for the state of the company.

I contacted Lucasarts a few days ago for any updates regarding the company and Star Wars 1313 and as of yet not heard any response. I hope I'm wrong and just becoming a little bit jittery myself. But with a studio that has such a rich background and made an important contribution to the history of gaming I would hate to see this once great (and still great) studio disappear.

Rob Wainfur
@welshslider

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