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The force is not with you Lucas Arts

Autocon
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Autocon polycounter lvl 15
As seen on Kotaku

http://kotaku.com/5627835/lucasarts-confirms-layoffs-former-staffers-speak-out

One week the game you have been working away on goes gold, the next you find out a shit ton of people are being let go. 60 from development side and 25 from external production/QA.

Hopefully all the former Lucas Arts guys land on there feet as this is defiantly quite the shity situation.

This seems to be quite the ugly trend these days in our industry.
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  • crazyfingers
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    crazyfingers polycounter lvl 10
    It's kinda cool to watch everything you loved as a kid slowly decay and die before you do

    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDCjIjsZp_Y[/ame]

    Remember when Lucas Arts was fighting Blizzard as the top computer game developer so many years ago? WTF happened?
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  • Thegodzero
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    Thegodzero polycounter lvl 18
    Sorry to see more people with out jobs...

    Easy, you know those film guys that have been entering our field? Well some of them brought some of the suits with them. Those suits LOVE the simplicity of the movie worlds use of creative types. Hire for a project them can them when they are done. <-completely talking out of my ass.

    My guess as to what was the cause would be a lack of projects for those people to move onto.
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  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    :( way to hurt 60+ artists due to bad business planning. Wish we could do something about that trend.
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  • Shogun3d
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    Shogun3d polycounter lvl 12
    Hope they land on their feet and pick up quick =\
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  • D4V1DC
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    D4V1DC polycounter lvl 18
    Unionize.

    Good luck to those let go.
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  • gsokol
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    gsokol
    I know these things can happen...but has it always been this bad? Studios have been dropping like flies, and it seems like every place lets half of their workforce go after a project. I would understand if these people were contracted for a project, but I find it hard to believe that is the case.

    This industry scares me more and more every day...
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  • Entity
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    Entity polycounter lvl 18
    Fuck, a friend of mine just got a job there. I'll have to contact him, see if he was affected. Pretty shitty deal if he did, he had to go through hoops to move there.
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  • kaze369
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    kaze369 polycounter lvl 8
    it seems to me that either a. studios are trying to save money just in case a game doesn't sell well. or b. the executives and higher up people are taking bigger paychecks to fill their wallets and cutting jobs mean more money for them.
    Either way it sucks.
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  • Malus
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    Malus polycounter lvl 17
    Man this industry...to quote one wise sage,

    "The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is." :(
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  • Saman
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    Saman polycounter lvl 13
    I think the problem usually is bad planning and the lack of overlapping projects. Good luck to anyone affected.
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  • Firebert
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    Firebert polycounter lvl 15
    First, to all those that lost their jobs, I wish you the best of luck. This really, really sucks, especially to hear that it is coming from the internal studio. NOT good to hear at all.

    Second...
    You guys all seem very shocked by this one? Why?

    Look at some factors.

    Lucasarts setup a shop in Singapore.
    A new President was hired.
    George Lucas has been riding the gravy train for decades and is high off his rocker.


    This may chalk up to bad planning, but for it to happen at the home front.... that's not only cold blooded, but almost solidifies the "we got those other guys overseas that can do it for cheaper and yield a higher return." ideology.

    Just my gut reaction with a couple of pennies on the side.

    Edit: And to add, a somewhat off-topic little article to display Lucas' love for dollar signs.
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  • ericdigital
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    ericdigital polycounter lvl 13
    This is almost deja vu from when the first unleashed shipped. Almost the same amount of people too. :(
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  • dtschultz
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    dtschultz polycounter lvl 12
    They also did this after the first one was shipped. I don't know if it was quite as many people, but I know it happened to a friend; so while it sucks, it seems to be the MO there.
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  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    From reading Kotaku it seems that Lucas Arts had a few projects lined up, but there new President (this is the rumor) canceled/put on indefinite hold of a lot of projects. One of the rumored canceled projects was Force Unleashed 3 and thats why the creative director of Force 1 and 2 left the studio recently.

    Also the new president is apparently shifting away from letting any other studio beyond Lucas Arts use any of the Lucas Arts franchise anymore after the new Bioware Star Wars MMO ships. So this means no more Lego Indy/Star Wars games as those were done by another studio. Which dosnt spell good news for Travllers Tales as they handle those games. Which is defantly a shame as the Lego Star Wars games are pretty cool IMO.
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  • Joseph Silverman
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    Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
    Firebert wrote: »
    Edit: And to add, a somewhat off-topic little article to display Lucas' love for dollar signs.

    i'm no fan of lucas, but did that article seriously try to paint his criticism of third parties remastering dead directors' movies as in opposition to his choice to alter and re-release his own films? Lucas succeeds because his fans (and critics) are even bigger assholes than he is, not because he's some kind of greedy evil genius.
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  • Firebert
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    Firebert polycounter lvl 15
    SupRore wrote: »
    i'm no fan of lucas, but did that article seriously try to paint his criticism of third parties remastering dead directors' movies as in opposition to his choice to alter and re-release his own films? Lucas succeeds because his fans (and critics) are even bigger assholes than he is, not because he's some kind of greedy evil genius.

    i see your point.
    i think it was more of the principal behind it. like a school teacher telling students to not do drugs, but when the day is over, he goes home and smokes his own weed that he grows in his attic. yeah it's his own stuff and it is his decision. it's just the principal behind it is so hypocritical, especially when you do it so publicly, at a congressional hearing for instance. then playing that principal off of knowing your fan base (which got you where you are today) would like something and flat out saying no... knowing full well that they'll even buy your used toilet paper on ebay.
    greedy evil genius? no.
    in it for himself and the money? yeah.

    off topic. sorry.
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  • Joseph Silverman
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    Joseph Silverman polycounter lvl 17
    No, it's like saying it demeans the creative vision of an artist to let another artist scribble over his work, but it doesn't to let him change his own pieces. Remastering his own shit is totally in line with his original stance, which was 'give the director absolute creative control, and let him keep it'

    He has always been a selfish fringe nutcase, he just made movies you LIKED when he was defying convention/logic and doing his own thing 30 years ago, and now he makes stupid stuff.
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  • Justin Meisse
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    Justin Meisse polycounter lvl 18
    gsokol wrote: »
    I know these things can happen...but has it always been this bad? Studios have been dropping like flies, and it seems like every place lets half of their workforce go after a project. I would understand if these people were contracted for a project, but I find it hard to believe that is the case.

    This industry scares me more and more every day...

    yup, seems like it's always been like this, I think blogs and forums have given us more exposure to it.

    Really sucks to hear for anyone involved, since the rumors of this have been circulating for a little while I hope everyone had enough time to prepare.
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  • doc rob
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    doc rob polycounter lvl 19
    Not only has it always been like this in the industry, but LucasArts has been following this specific pattern for years.

    3 years -> fire old president, hire new one, new guy does a bunch of house cleaning
    big game ships -> lay off excess staff
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  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    pretty much the same as in politics. New president/whatever just has to do something so it looks like something is happening or changing to keep the shareholders/voters happy. And currently "saving money" is the big thing, and the easiest way - instead of optimizing workflows, etc - is to just fire people.

    Probably not a good idea in the long run to treat people as expendable resources rather than building on them, but as with politics, it's the short term gain that matters. After all why should you care what comes after you, as long as you got your own paycheck and retirement package secured?

    the sad thing is, all this isn't really a surprise, and you can see this pattern in many many industries :(
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