The house of mouse has taken over the Star Wars empire and that's merchandise included. "After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games,” Lucas Arts said in a statement released earlier this week.
This move impacts all projects in development, including Star Wars 1313 - a tech demo that had the Jedi community a buzz at the E3 electronic expo. It's scrapped for now, but there is still hope for external licensing.
Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in Oct 2012.
Industry Talk: LucasArts, founded in 1982, also announced that there would be layoffs for the staff of 150. No doubt many of them longtime employees. “As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles” a spokesman said. This comes on the heels of the news that Star Wars: Clone Wars, the animated television show, would be coming to an end. I wonder how Lucasfilm employees are feeling about this transition...
Image courtesy of joblo.com
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