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.
Replies
[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?
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.
Good luck to those let go.
This industry scares me more and more every day...
Either way it sucks.
"The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
3 years -> fire old president, hire new one, new guy does a bunch of house cleaning
big game ships -> lay off excess staff
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