Following its $4.05 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm and accompanying properties in October 2012, Disney has shut down in-house game development at LucasArts.
LucasArts will now serve exclusively as a licensor, farming out game development duties to third-party studios.
"After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimising the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games," said a Disney spokesperson in a statement to GameInformer.
No surprises
Immediately following the Lucasfilm acquisition last year, Disney CEO Robert Iger was already suggesting that he had a different approach in mind for games based on Lucas properties.
"We're likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console," Iger told investors. "We'll look opportunistically at console, most likely in licensing rather than publishing."
As such, the shift is unsurprising. It is, however, bad news for staff at LucasArts Disney has confirmed that the change will results in layoffs across the organisation.
"We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles," Disney added.
[source: GameInformer]
Top Stories
Feature
May 17th, 2024
New release roundup: The best new mobile games from a battle royale to a console classic remake
Feature
May 16th, 2024
Behind the scenes: How adding sandwich offers to an idle merge game boosted three metrics at once
Events
Digital Dragons | Europe | May 19th |
GamesBeat Summit 2024 | North America | May 20th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Nordic Game Spring 2024 | Nordic | May 21st |
Impact 2024 - Indie Games | May 23rd | |
Morocco Gaming Expo | Africa | May 24th |
MomoCon 2024 | North America | May 24th |
Unreal Fest Gold Coast 2024 | Australasia | May 29th |
Popular Stories
Feature
May 14th, 2024
53 top mobile games in soft launch: Squad Busters, Battle Guys: Royale, Plants vs. Zombies 3, LEGO Hill Climb Adventures, and more
Feature
May 13th, 2024
Hot Five: Dubai's new Gaming Visa, April's mobile game charts, and Xbox studio closures
Interview
May 13th, 2024