LucasArts decided to axe
the Cleverness Division in favour of
the Milking-the-Star-Wars-Licence-Until-It's-Udders-Turn-Into Little-Black-Stalactites-Department.
The game development firm of Lucas Film Licensing LLC (of
George Lucas and
Star Wars fame) that's in charge of doling out the license for all official
Star Wars and
Indiana Jones games. In addition to the aforementioned, the studio was also famous for producing adventure games like
Full Throttle and
Day Of The Tentacle as well as the
Monkey Island series (and more recently, the
Mercenaries series), as well as a series of
World War II and
Star Wars-themed flight sims developed by Lawrence Holland's Totally Games! studio, mainly
Battlehawks 1942, Secret Weapons Of The Luftwaffe and the
X-Wing and
TIE Fighter space combat games.
Initially called Lucasfilm Games, it was once a powerhouse creative studio,
the 1990s mark the
Golden Age of the company, a period when it produced many iconic
Adventure Games and Space
Simulation Games, often ranked among the best games ever. The firm gradually changed its focus towards outsourced
Star Wars products after
Grim Fandango returned very poor sale figures despite receiving many Game of the Year awards.
Subsequent titles published or developed in-house include
Fracture,
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (note that its sequel,
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames had its publishing rights given to
Electronic Arts by developer Pandemic) and
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. However, the sequel,
The Force Unleashed II would prove to be the last in-house game developed by
LucasArts; soon afterward, in the summer of 2008, the studio was disbanded, with LucasArts announcing that it would become largely a title publisher. Their financial state also led to the cancellation of numerous in-development titles, and indirectly caused
Battlefront III developer
Free Radical to go under due to witholding payments and cancellation fees. The last several years of the company were marred by poor sales, layoffs, and multiple changes of leadership. Internal development had all but ceased, though they still dedicated resources to keeping existing
I Ps aflost, such as
Enhanced Rereleases of the first two
Monkey Island games, the first digital releases of some of their out-of-print catalog titles, and a collaboration with
Tell Tale Games to created an episodic sequel to the IP.
After a $4 billion buyout of its matrix Lucasfilm, the videogame branch and its intellectual properties were acquired by
Disney in 2012. Though initially Disney announced the studio's operations and projects would remain undisturbed (such as
Star Wars 1313 which was still in active development), they later announced the closure of the studio on April 3, 2013 in favor of becoming a licensing entity, thus ending the thirty-year history of LucasArts.
Many LucasArts alumni became major players in the game industry after their tenures at the studio ended.
Ron Gilbert and
Tim Schafer both started their careers in games at the studio.
Sierra was their main
Adventure Game rival during both companies heydey.
Double Fine &
Telltale Games, both founded by LucasArts alumni turned into
Spiritual Successors of the types of games made in the 80s and early 90s.
Pixar originated as LucasArts' "Graphics Group", before being spun off into a separate corporate entity.
LucasArts' famed
graphic adventure games include, in chronological order:
LucasArts'
Star Wars titles include (hardly a complete list; see also
Star Wars Expanded Universe):
LucasArts'
flight simulators include, in chronological order:
Other LucasArts games:
Prior to the formation of Lucasarts, Lucasfilm created several titles for the
Atari,
Commodore and other 8-bit home computers. These were developed under the Lucasarts Games banner and published by various companies:
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