The final days of LucasArts from the inside

[The Boston Dangler]

If you read some of the article comments (and believe them) then some are from ex-LucasArts devs. And they talk about how you either went with what GL wanted or got fired if you challenged him. That means if you wanted to work for Lucas then you had no choice but to be a yes man. So basically, his ego took over and he believed he knew best about everything going on in his companies.

that is exactly how lucas always operated everything.

 

[Skel]

There's a lot to be said about the balance between the corp side and dev side of a business like LucasArts. While I can't deny a lot of it sure sounds like the two were rubbing against each other here, it just doesn't sound any different than any other company. It's easy to take the dev side, after all they're promising us these amazingly awesome games if they could just be left alone with a blank check and all the time they need to create these games. The sad reality for anyone working that bills do have to get paid and timetables have to be met. I'm sure if we heard the flip side of the story from the corp side of it we'd hear a completely different story where milestones were missed causing production to be over budget, which in turn caused the cutbacks.

 

[styrafoam]

that is exactly how lucas always operated everything.

It was sad, but a little funny at the same time to see him get raked over the coals by everyone over ep. I, II & III, the IV, V, & VI reissues and some of his more recent films. People he couldn't fire gave him honest feedback and he didn't appreciate it. He gave up and "retired" rather than admit that he didn't have the chops to do it all on his own.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Seconded. Karma's come back around though, LucasArts is gone and Obsidian has gotten millions in crowdsourced funds from Kickstarter.

If you're expecting good games to come from EA, you'd better curb those expectations right now. EA is the graveyard of good developers.

I'm sure all of us would want a 3rd Jedi Knight II game, but Lucas doesn't like money.

 

[Revolution 11]

There's a lot to be said about the balance between the corp side and dev side of a business like LucasArts. While I can't deny a lot of it sure sounds like the two were rubbing against each other here, it just doesn't sound any different than any other company. It's easy to take the dev side, after all they're promising us these amazingly awesome games if they could just be left alone with a blank check and all the time they need to create these games. The sad reality for anyone working that bills do have to get paid and timetables have to be met. I'm sure if we heard the flip side of the story from the corp side of it we'd hear a completely different story where milestones were missed causing production to be over budget, which in turn caused the cutbacks.

You have a point but LucasArts has not produced a great game since 2001. There was Bounty Hunter and Jedi Starfighter in 2002, decent games, and Republic Commando in 2005. I do not consider the Force Unleashed to be a great game but many people really like it.

That's not many games in over 10 years. On the other hand, 4 presidents came and left within 2 years. That's clearly a management failure. If the developers did fail, management only contributed to the problem. Clearly, there was a talent drain after The Phantom Menace (film) but management is probably at fault for that as well.

Good management and corporate morale will always attract good developers, good developers only seem to attract bad management.

 

[Skel]

You have a point but LucasArts has not produced a great game since 2001. There was Bounty Hunter and Jedi Starfighter in 2002, decent games, and Republic Commando in 2005. I do not consider the Force Unleashed to be a great game but many people really like it.

That's not many games in over 10 years. On the other hand, 4 presidents came and left within 2 years. That's clearly a management failure. If the developers did fail, management only contributed to the problem. Clearly, there was a talent drain after The Phantom Menace (film) but management is probably at fault for that as well.

Good management and corporate morale will always attract good developers, good developers only seem to attract bad management.

I agree that it prob was a failure in management that compounded problems all over the place. I just also think that Devs owned a good chunk of the blame too. There has to be the balance or it's just not going to work.. Management needs to understand it has artists working for them and figure the best approach to getting the best out of them, but Devs need to understand Management needs to pay it's bills or no one gets paid. The last line you put in is the point I was making.. it's just too easy to take the Dev's side. Dev and Managers both have good and bad sides..

 

[lupi]

Mjedi starfighter, not sure if I have or have heard of that.

Did finally look at the trailer for 1337 or whatever is was called, looked like it could have been an interesting game.

 

[Wolfpup]

I hate that this happened. They released so many interesting games over the years.

The Force Unleashed was freaking amaaaaazing, and is actually an (apparently canon, until they decide it's not) movie in between episode 3 and 4, which makes some things make sense that never made sense in a jaw dropping "ooooooh" moment kind of way.

 

[Revolution 11]

I agree that it prob was a failure in management that compounded problems all over the place. I just also think that Devs owned a good chunk of the blame too. There has to be the balance or it's just not going to work.. Management needs to understand it has artists working for them and figure the best approach to getting the best out of them, but Devs need to understand Management needs to pay it's bills or no one gets paid. The last line you put in is the point I was making.. it's just too easy to take the Dev's side. Dev and Managers both have good and bad sides..

I have to disagree here. Over the short term, you are correct, both developers and management share blame. But over the long-term history of a company, management is responsible for both success and failure. If you have bad developers, you can shift them to other projects, sack them, etc. If you have bad management, you are utterly screwed. Your only real solution is to hope that even higher management is somewhat competent and can fix the problems.

Good management will work around the problems of developers. They will promote the better employees and sideline or remove the bad apples. They will do better screening for more talented developers. But if the management is bad, the entire workplace is affected.

Any employee can be bad, lazy, inefficient. But when your whole workforce is like that, that is management's responsibility and fault. Systematic problems among game developers can always be linked to some form of mismanagement.

If LucasArts had problems for a year or two, that could be developer issues. When it goes on for more than a decade, that is clearly management. Just the fact that developers like Tim Schafer left LucasArts could be attributed to confused and unstable management.


Wow, I feel like Steve Ballmer here. Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers...........:awe:

 

[Skel]

I have to disagree here. Over the short term, you are correct, both developers and management share blame. But over the long-term history of a company, management is responsible for both success and failure. If you have bad developers, you can shift them to other projects, sack them, etc. If you have bad management, you are utterly screwed. Your only real solution is to hope that even higher management is somewhat competent and can fix the problems.

Good management will work around the problems of developers. They will promote the better employees and sideline or remove the bad apples. They will do better screening for more talented developers. But if the management is bad, the entire workplace is affected.

Any employee can be bad, lazy, inefficient. But when your whole workforce is like that, that is management's responsibility and fault. Systematic problems among game developers can always be linked to some form of mismanagement.

If LucasArts had problems for a year or two, that could be developer issues. When it goes on for more than a decade, that is clearly management. Just the fact that developers like Tim Schafer left LucasArts could be attributed to confused and unstable management.


Wow, I feel like Steve Ballmer here. Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers...........:awe:

I'll concede the point and say you're right... I just still believe it's way too easy to take the little guys side, in this case Devs. I'm prob a bit bitter on it as I've ran a creative studio (non-PC gaming mind you) and it was a constant drain trying to get the creative types to do something work related. I ended up shuttering the whole thing as it just became not worth it to keep turning people over. In this case I'm sure the answer lies somewhere more towards management jacking it up, as you're right we're talking years of WTFs happening.