Just over a month ago the games industry received some grave news that many had been expecting for a while; LucasArts, veteran creator of so many treasured classics, was to cease internal game development following the sale of parent company LucasFilm to Disney.
News of company-wide layoffs (more than 150 employees were said to have lost their jobs) only added to the funeral mood.
I admit I was more upbeat than most. The closure of LucasArts' development operations brought a merciful end to a graceless period in the once great company's history. Let's not sugar coat it; for a number of reasons (including those beyond its control) LucasArts had become a prolific underperformer for more than a decade.
Since the turn of the century it had rotated its staff and CEOs at a puzzling pace, resulting in an inevitably muddled business strategy and half-baked line-up of games that only disserved the great names they carried.
The fact that eight years on, it still hadn't managed to follow-up the multi-million selling Star Wars Battlefront II - despite reportedly signing three different studios to create it - sums up the muddy mire that entrenched the company.
With Disney at the helm - another company that's had its fingers burnt in the core games space - it was time to move on.
Arguably the biggest vindication of the decision arrived this weekend, with news that EA has secured a multi-year agreement to create new 'core' Star Wars titles. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop Star Wars: The Old Republic.
At first glance this is an excellent prospect: For more than a decade, all of the best Star Wars games have come from external developers; Factor 5's excellent Rogue Leader, Raven's Jedi Knight sequels, the masterful Lego games from Traveller's Tales and of course BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic and Pandemic's Battlefront.
"For more than a decade, all of the best Star Wars games have come from external developers."
It's worth noting that the latter two are and were EA studios. Away from the management chaos of LucasArts' internal corridors, there's no debating that in recent years independent developers have had an easier time delivering the polished Jedi vs. Sith experiences the licence commands.
Put those views on microtransactions and DRM tinkering aside, and you'll probably also agree that few game publishers are as well equipped for this task going forward as EA. With DICE, Visceral and BioWare, it has three of the most accomplished modern core game developers as custodians for the great franchise.
Expectantly, and I must admit excitingly, the forum threads are already inundated with fantasies of Star Wars: Battlefield, KOTOR 3 and a Visceral-led completion of Star Wars 1313.
Two years ago those dreams would've undoubtedly become reality, but the state of today's EA - a company transitioning from a financially-punishing period of creative risk (see Mirror's Edge, Dead Space) - comes with a potential health warning.
Still without a permanent CEO following the departure of John Riccitiello, EA is in a transition of which no one is completely sure of the outcome.
No doubt the next chief executive won't turn his or her nose up at Star Wars games (even with those painful Disney royalty rates) but how that person will want to shape the franchise is a mystery to us all.
At best, the EA Star Wars deal could usher in a triumphant return to the golden days of Rebel Assault and Jedi Knight. The worst? It's not time to think about that just yet.
We've all pinned our hopes on Star Wars games and have had our dreams shattered far too often. But a franchise with this much potential, and a publisher with so much to prove, in my eyes deserves another chance.
Possible to see, OUR future is
Something is rummaging in the CVG office. The telltale signs of a major project litter the environment; piles of electric cigarette batteries; a sizable block of holiday marked in the dev calendar; an unmistakable aura of mixed fear and anticipation.
You'll be able to see the results of our work next week. It might be the nicotine talking, but we think you'll love it.
Comments
45 comments so far...
theopopp on 7 May '13 said:
People had been looking at Lucas Arts with rose tinted glasses. The franchise has gone to some seriously great devs. I'm excited by this. No one's forcing you to buy them or use the micro transactions if they are even included we have literally heard nothing about the games and people are already whinging. Same with the Sims 4. EA make some great games and while I don't agree with all their business practices they are at the end of the day a business as in they want to make as big a profit as they can. You don't have to play their games, vote with your wallet. It's the same people who say ohhh we don't want anymore COD, well clearly 3 million people do and why should anyone take that away from them. There's plenty of great games out there. If you don't like something or a company don't give them your money it's as simple as that. People don't make the argument that say Die Hard is ruining/damaging the entire film industry, so why do the same for games. There's games of all sorts available especially with the indie and crowdfunded scene so hot and the next gen just round the corner people should be excited yet it's just more and more and more monotonous cynicism. It's really starting to grate to be honest.
nefariousbig on 7 May '13 said:
Battlefront 3 and DICE makes SO much sense. There isn't a company out there that could do it justice like them. The recently released footage of BF3 in development seemed to be aping Battlefield, and I remember thinking "All it needed was Frostbite", just imagine how insane being a Jedi/Sith would be with that level of destruction! I'm so moist right now.
theopopp on 7 May '13 said:
Yeah I bought Battlefront 2 on steam this weekend and noticed just how much it reminded me of a Battlefield game. Battlefront game with huge maps, lots of vehicles and great destruction and graphics is a really exciting prospect. I can see them maybe doing a stand-alone expansion to Battlefield 4 similar to Blood Dragon or Festival of Blood which is Star Wars themed that would be great.
richomack360 on 7 May '13 said:
Give me a non-DRM version of Sim City with Star Wars' visuals and I am sold.
LordVonPS3 on 7 May '13 said:
At first I was surprised that Disney would trust the Star Wars franchise to EA, then it hit me that Disney will nickel and dime Star Wars fans anyway. Character movies, new trilogy and anything else they can think of.
EA won't be breaking any curses... You know it to be true!
Manjushri on 7 May '13 said:
My only problem with this is that EA are such a bunch of money grabbing bastards, and that they are gonna milk this for all it's worth.
I'm sure they'll pump out some good games, but not great - as it will all come loaded to the hilt with DRM, DLC, season passes, multiplayer and co-op on games that don't need it and 'exclusives' (timed or otherwise).
Still I am kinda hopeful - if they release battlefront 3 (like that vid that was knocking about awhile back) I'll shall kiss they're asses (and I don't mean the donkey variety).
MrPirtniw on 7 May '13 said:
Although i'm not a fan of the Battlefield games DICE would be a good fit for a new Battlefront.
I'm not holding out for a new KOTOR from BioWare. I mean, I'd love there to be but I can't see EA letting them go back to when they made games with substance.
Viceral are a solid dev in tried and tested gaming (such as Dead Space being a Resi 4 clone and Dantes Inferno being a God of War clone) so I assume whatever they produce will be fun but nothing groundbreaking.
All speculation of course, but Disney and EA partnering up is disturbing thought. A lot of suits are about to make a lot of money, that's for sure. All I can picture is a sort of human centipede type thing with Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney and Peter Moore eating up developers, draining them of their souls and sh1tting out day one DLC and microtransactions whilst high fiving one another. Nom.
@LordVon: agreed. If people though Lucas had milked the franchise just wait and see what Disney will do.
nefariousbig on 7 May '13 said:
Can we please just all understand why this is a moot point. Saying "You don't have to buy the microtransaction items" is a misunderstanding of the issue. The point is that we could reach a stage where a lot of the content that would normally be in these games (and is usually on the disc anyway) is withheld to be sold on release as microtransactions. We could end up with extremely diluted games with the bare minimum of content, unless the community is vocal about it's opposition of money grubbing tactics. I don't know about you, but I certainly remember a time where devs would include a buttload of extra content, random costumes, levels, cheats etc just because, and I've watched the slow decline into DLC SEASON PASS BONANZA FEST YAY. Nowadays it's somehow become the norm to charge for any and all costumes, better versions of weapons in the game (denying the skilled player a decent reward to benefit spenders), and s**t, charging to use the unlock everything cheat. We used to get that for free, in a magazine, as a code! If you let them charge you, they will. We need a revival of the kind of 'maximum content' thinking devs had with games like Timesplitters. You don't need to ply people with microtransactions if your game is already absolutely bursting with content.
theopopp on 7 May '13 said:
Games are getting more and more expensive to make, Devs and publishers are looking for alternative revenue streams so they have DLC, microtransactions etc. They to be honest unless they want to go out of business need to sell DLC and the like. Just look at square enix, they released three (at least) solid, in my opinion great games last year, TR, Hitman and Sleeping Dogs but all under performed and struggled to break even. But what I'm saying is that so many people do buy season passes and DLC and microtransactions and this is therefore what people want. If a game has intrusive DRM and you don't like that don't buy it, same for microtransactions and the like. I have to say as well that I think the majority DLC isn't content chipped away from the main game it's content due to approval processes on consoles, manufacture times and release schedules can't be included on disc. I think it would be silly to expect a company to give away this extra content for free as even big studios are in trouble at the minute. Some DLC eg Capcoms on disc fighters/costumes is bad business but just look at the backlash to really shady practices like that. I would say that lot's of games do still include cheats, easter eggs and secrets etc. It's just "in" at the moment to bash on EA, just like it was "in" a few years ago to bash on Activision.
nefariousbig on 7 May '13 said:
It's 'in' for a reason... First off, TR, Hitman, and Sleeping Dogs arguably did not underperform, they didn't reach their sales targets, but as has already been said many times by analysts and industry figures, their sales projections were ridiculous and unrealistic. Secondly, just because people are buying it doesn't mean it's better for the industry. That's just a fallacy. It's like the idea that pop music and s**t from the charts is the best music because many people buy it... something you learn after a while is that a LOT of people are goddamn idiots who don't know a thing, and who don't pay any consideration to how what they buy affects the industry. I mean, simply buying the dlc doesn't show that you wanted that content to be delivered in that way. It just means that you wanted whatever the content was. Why silently 'vote with your wallet', and hope that your lack of service makes enough of an impact to counter the thousands of careless idiots, when you could be pro-active, and voice concerns, make it abundantly clear to devs that there is opposition to the ideals that are currently cropping up. Is there literally any benefit to simply voting with your wallet and not making any interaction whatsoever with the issue?
theopopp on 7 May '13 said:
At the end of the day whether you think it's good or not it's successful. If you think that EA will care at all about a minority of people being vocal against stuff. All they'll look at is sales figures. If people are okay with it then it will continue to happen. There's endless lists of games that don't have tons of day one DLC or microtransactions or DRM. Hating on EA for trying to make more money is mad to be honest.
MrPirtniw on 7 May '13 said:
There was this old hermit I met in the desert once. Mentioned something about a fool and his money...
TheLastDodo on 7 May '13 said:
One was a new IP and the other two were "reboots" of franchises that had seen better days. Square Enix had unrealistic expectations for all three games and threw money around where it wasn't really needed. Publishers seem to think all they have to do is throw money around and they'll get what they want, it doesn't work like that. Don't let publishers fool you, it is possible to make commercially successful games these days without hiding bits behind a paywall, selling bits later, including microtransactions etc.
I don't see an online pass, microtransactions, day one DLC in Dark Souls yet that was still a commercial success, how? Because the publishers knew what they were doing, they knew their audience, budgeted accordingly, didn't waste their money getting a hollywood actress to do a voice over.
No-one hates EA for trying to make money, they hate EA for the ways they try to make money, among many other reasons.
FishyGinger on 7 May '13 said:
That would be a decent argument if the most vocal weren't generally a bunch of t**ts who just shout and argue for the sake of it. I can't blame developers/publishers not listening to most of what customers give as feedback as quite a bit of it is stupid.
KK-Headcharge78 on 7 May '13 said:
This. Who at Activision is going to listen to the troll festivals everytime COD is mentioned and yet the franchise has sold over 100 million units? Any credible arguments vs such games are often lost in the waves of spoilt kids acting like self entitled s**ts.
ngnikolaos on 7 May '13 said:
Unfortunately, the more other companies try to copycat Darksouls with other "similar" games (Dragon's Dogma, deep down, etc.), the less money the next Souls game will make (because the audience will begin to divide itself to franchises which will more-or-less be their cup of tea). And eventually, Bandai will have to resort to microtrans-crap in order to make the numbers they wanted to make.
illage2 on 7 May '13 said:
Last thing I want to see for Battlefront is for it to basically be Battlefield 3 reskinned with Star Wars Stuff, sorry but EA the worst company in America (twice in a row I might add) and Disney who wrecks everything they touch .....a recipe for disaster is brewing.
I want to be wrong, but I doubt I am.
KK-Headcharge78 on 7 May '13 said:
Or Disney and EA are two of the most successful entertainment companies in America, just for balance of course
gmcb007 on 7 May '13 said:
A company that likes to milk and a franchise that loves to be milked. It's a perfect match.
theopopp on 7 May '13 said:
EA were only voted because a group of people online got in a massive hissy fit and ignored BP who caused the oil spills, companies who manufacture rifles for kids and just went waaaa dead space had DLC and we didn't like the Mass Effect ending. Bunch of people who seem to go out of there way to be offended.
theopopp on 7 May '13 said:
And sorry. Disney who wreck everything they touch. They're a hugely successful commercial company and have made some of if not the best animated movies of all time. Saying that about Disney is going out of your way to be different and provocative.
FishyGinger on 7 May '13 said:
Last thing I'd want to see for Battlefront is for it to basically be Street Cleaning Simulator reskinned with star wars. Or it transformed into an angry testicle kicking kangaroo named NutCrunch.
Barry316 on 7 May '13 said:
Last thing i'd want to see are Jedward on my family tree.
MrPirtniw on 7 May '13 said:
Please don't confuse success with quality. Mr Blobby, the Crazy Frog, FF13 and The American Pie films have made the word success meaningless in my cold, dead, jaded eyes.
FishyGinger on 7 May '13 said:
You're not one of the sorry lot who call themselves irish. Did you know 120% of irish people are inbred? It means they're all related to jedward in some way.
Gemini40 on 7 May '13 said:
Disney wreck everything they touch? I did just read that didnt I?
Manjushri on 7 May '13 said:
LOL.
Sad, but true.
ffcoppolla on 7 May '13 said:
So you don't like any of Pixar's creations? They are owned by Disney, after all...
MrPirtniw on 7 May '13 said:
Indeed! I love The Incredibles! in fact Pixar are probably the only thing I like about Disney- But that's not what I meant- I'm not agreeing with the guy who said Disney wreck everything they touch- they've done a good job with The Avengers so far- and I'm sure they'll do a better job than the Star Wars Prequels (maybe). Just saying successful doesn't automatically mean good.
I mean, HollyOaks is still going and that's the Crème de la Crème of sh1t!
jukkiz on 7 May '13 said:
Hear hear. Also already happening in mobile games. Some titles (that already cost money) are nigh impossible to play without spending a LOT more.
So yeah keep excusing company greed because "they're here to make money" or "you don't have to buy it", and sooner than you think you will end up spending $$$ every time you boot up a game you bought. It's the return of arcades, but in our living rooms.
Luckily there are indie developers that are actually producing interesting games, that are not just a money-grabbing machine for soulless corporations.
Oh and Star Wars games have been awful since X-Wing vs Tie Fighter. So not that bothered that the most hated company in US has aquired rights to make more awful games. Business as usual.
Gemini40 on 7 May '13 said:
The arcades were great times and comparing them with todays DLC and microtransactions is stretching it a tad. For a start, you werent asked to pay anything up front at the door to play Gauntlet.
KK-Headcharge78 on 7 May '13 said:
Yeah but back in the day (80's and 90's) arcades were commonplace and now they hardly make a bean I would wager (in the UK at least) so there is one loss of revenue, factor in also that in them days there was no 2nd hand market of note, no Ebay, on-line retailers or supermarkets selling games, all these factors have a big effect on bottom line sales of new games. I'm not saying dlc and microtransactions should be accepted out of hand but I can understand why companies seek new ways of extracting revenue from the consumer.
I guess it's sadder that the arcade market died.
Manjushri on 7 May '13 said:
Yeah, but you sure had to shove enough coins in the thing.
sevvybgoode on 7 May '13 said:
An up vote for the genius who mentioned star wars sim city (without drm of course). I'd buy that for a dollar!
trzarector on 7 May '13 said:
So now EA will finally have a title to go against the Call of Duty franchise!
A Star Wars based multi-player FPS with DICE at the helm ... the mind boggles!
Gemini40 on 7 May '13 said:
And I not only got my moneys worth every time, I loved every minute of it.
JDB on 8 May '13 said:
Battlefront, the fish that got away.
jodders on 8 May '13 said:
The Star Wars game I would give my left nut for: An Elite still game with
dogfights (not the canine cruelty kind); exploring planets and space stations;
Weapon crafting; trading and solid single and multiplayer combat.
If any game give me ALL that it's a day one purchase.
I wouldn't even mind DLC with that so long as it's stuff like new planets/bases
to explore not the AMAZEBALLS MEGA BLASTER 9000 for 0.79p or silly crap
like that.
jodders on 8 May '13 said:
Interesting (but tenuous) thing:
I once explained the whole plot of Star Wars to the Mrs using the little
known art of genital shadow puppetry.
Mine, not hers cause that would be weird.
She laughed, amazingly we're still together.
Don't have nightmares.
KK-Headcharge78 on 8 May '13 said:
Post of the year right here chaps
nefariousbig on 8 May '13 said:
I really really really dislike this idea that's been floating around since the f**king Mass Effect 3 ending scandal, that any sort of crticism of a dev or the way a publisher handles it's business is being 'self entitled' or is 'complaining'... it's just bulls**t. Being apathetic and not saying a damn thing doesn't help anyone but the investors and spenders. It doesn't help improve the practices of the publisher. It doesn't help to guide the devs towards what their consumers (the people who, ultimately, pay their wages) want, or in fact need in a few cases. It's just a cowardly way of whinging at other people for being pro-active. Consumers taking an active interest in the industry they regularly put money into is NOT self entitlement.
nefariousbig on 8 May '13 said:
With some deft skill and lightwork you could do a cracking Sarlaac
FishyGinger on 8 May '13 said:
I'm not sure I want to know how you get the teeth...
I reckon spaceballs would be easier. It already has Lord Helmet and it's near enough the same thing.
DemiGoth on 9 May '13 said:
EA can't break the SW curse at all!
...just look at SimCity
...just look at SWTOR
...just look at ME3
...just look at DA2
For the last 3 years EA has only been putting out crap games on a known IP. I fear that now that they have a SW-only license the same will happen again
ricflair on 9 May '13 said:
Are DICE going to be able to produce top quality Star Wars games and a BF game every two years? Star Wars might end up being the new MoH!
Dead Space never really grabbed me, but Visceral aren't exactly Naughty Dog are they?