2020 has already become famous as the richest of incidents and problems over the past decades. But one unpleasant event almost certainly passed you, my friend. The publisher Take-Two Interactive absorbed a small indie studio. In 2017, Take-Two bought the rights to the Kerbal Space Program franchise and hired the Star Theory India Studio for the development of sequel. And the development was successful. Pre -viewing the game at the exhibition Penny Arcade Expo in September 2019 left fans under the impression. By the end of the year, the game was almost ready, but the developers asked the publisher to transfer the release for six months to add more content to the game. Take-Two gave the good, but the continuation of the development required a new contract. Here the problems began. The publisher wanted to buy a studio, but her leadership did not like the terms of the contract, so the consent could not be achieved. And then one day all members of the studio came a message on the social network LinkedIn from the executive producer Take-Two Interactive. It reported that Star Theory took the development of Kerbal Space Program 2 and give it to a specially created studio under the wing of the publisher, where the developers were invited. I don’t know whether it is a coincidence or an angry joke, but the newly made studio was called Intercept Games. If anything, “Intercept” translates as “interception”, will be real? The developers faced the choice: to lose part of the creative freedom, but to have a job with the publisher, or to take a chance and stay with their team, which lost financing. Although the leadership of Star Theory assured that there was money on the bank account of the studio, which would be enough for several months, a third of the employees immediately went to Intercept.
However, the remaining team was not going to give up so easy. The next two months they spent, as they say, brainstorming – each team member offered their own ideas and concepts for the future game, the most successful were created prototypes that developers were going to show at the Game Developers Conference – an event dedicated to games developers, where they can find funding for their projects. But you probably already guess what happened next – the world was seized by a pandemic, planting everyone home. GDC was canceled by burying the last hope of an indie studio, and on March 4 it closed. Most of the developers still went to Intercept, fully justifying its name.
Unfortunately, such sad stories are not uncommon for the video game industry. And it concerns not only little-known indie studios. From the closure, even the large fish of Gamdev, which were made by many games, are not insured. The incident with Star Theory reminded me of several sad examples of the death of talented studios of various calibers and varying degrees of fame. This blog opens a cycle of articles in which I will tell you these stories.
Directly Lucasarts
In the eighties, when the video playing industry was just starting to develop, filmmakers already glanced at it with interest, thinking how to earn extra money there. Someone sold the rights to create games in their franchises, someone collaborated directly with publishers, releasing cheap “related” games, which eventually led to the crisis of the gaming industry. But only George Lucas saw potential in video games and decided to specifically take up them. He created a whole subsidiary called Lucasfilm Games, hired a bunch of talented developers there, and they created a crazit of crafts on the legendary trilogy of Lucas, but original quests. Some of them, for example, Maniac Mansion or The Secret of Monkey Island are considered a cult classic of the genre. In 1990, reorganization occurred, and the studio turned into Lucasarts known to us. I don’t know what was changed there except the name, but the pot began to cook. The number of games produced began to grow, as well as the variety of genres. Now, in addition to quests, the studio produced platformers, space simulators, action, even there was one urban planning simulator, but not particularly outstanding. Then Lucas pulled an ace from the sleeve – games in star wars began to exit actively. And it would seem, there are more games, the games have become more diverse, so their quality should naturally fall. Surely for sure, the star wars were disgraced with their inferiority. But no! The games turned out to be good, some even acquired the status of cult. In the nineties, Lucasarts logo was generally a kind of quality sign. The shining arc in the hands of a man seemed to say that the studio is at a zenith.
But time passed, and with the onset luckymeslotscasino.co.uk of the twenty -first century, the Sun of the company was already turning to the west. For ten years since 2000, she changed four presidents. And of course, each such change of power led to a complete reorganization, and with it to reduction and cancellation of games. In 2004, the studio generally actually closed and opened again – from there almost all employees were fired. One of them told how he rolled on the videos on the office building, because he was there completely alone. Because of this, that year the company published other people’s games: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic from BioWare and Star Wars: Battlefront from Pandemic, which, by the way, we will talk about in the future. Naturally, all these shocks did not benefit either Lucasarts itself or her games. But despite all many developers, they believed that they would be able to return the studios of its former greatness. In 2009, they began to work on a Star Wars project called Underworld, which would supplement the series of the same name. Both of them were designed for adult fans, and would show the other side of the planet-city of Corusant, criminal, with its violence, poverty and mafia showdowns. Initially, the developers wanted to make a game in the spirit of GTA, but the developers had to coordinate any idea with the leadership of Lucasfilm, and there were mostly old -fashioned filmmakers, and they were not particularly interested in games. Often, Lucasarts employees made presentations for them, where they explained in detail how the games were arranged. In addition, many issues had to be coordinated with George Lucas himself, who was dissatisfied with the failures of the company. As a result, by the end of 2009, the project turned into the fact that the developers themselves called GEARS of Star Wars, subtly hinting at the similarity with the game of epic.
Six months later, the baton again passed to the new director, who, in addition to abbreviations and cancellation of games, also brought new technologies. He previously worked for Epic Games, and decided that the developers need to move from his engine to Unreal Engine. He also considered Underworld too conservative, he wanted to make a noise. Then GEARS of Star Wars turned into Star Wars Uncharted. Here Lucasarts had an advantage, because they were adjacent to the manufacturer of the special effects, which made them for the original Star Wars. By the end of 2010, the developers have already begun the image of the game and even the name appeared – Star Wars 1313.
The pre-production went smoothly and the release dates have already been planned: the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, just to launch a new generation of consoles. But from time to time, George Lucas burst into this measured process with his proposals. He said to add more and more locations and heroes from the series to the game, which could help the recognition of the project, but forced to throw out and remake huge pieces of game every time. Lucas is engaged in cinema, he was used to constantly changing something in visual terms, and he did not even think that in games these changes greatly affect the gameplay. In 2012, the team hastily cooked demo for E3. The plot was already ready, several levels, the main characters, many dialogs were recorded and the facial expressions of some characters were shot, and then Lucas came to the studio and said that the main character of the game would be Bob Fett’s head hunter. For developers, this sounded like an order to stop the multi -ton composition on the go and send it in the other direction. In addition to the plot, all the locations would have to be changed, because Bob had a famous jetpack, which completely changed the gameplay and the approach to building levels. Designers will have to change all combat situations, and programmers teach opponents artificial intelligence to respond to the flights of the protagonist. The studio leadership tried to explain to Lucas that the change of the protagonist would only require titanic efforts and throw years of work on a landfill, but it was not possible to convince the boss. Moreover, he said that they should not talk about Bob Fett on E3. It so happened that Lucasarts had to spend two months in constant penis on a demo version about the old hero, realizing that in the end he would not be in the game. But they had no choice. The studio has long lost its reputation, and in order to arouse interest in their new project, they needed not only to announce it. Everyone needed to overshadow.
Demo Star Wars: 1313
In June 2012, after E3, the Internet exploded with articles and reviews of the upcoming Star Wars 1313. After so many years of stagnation, the legendary studio rolled out such a hot announcement. The project won all sorts of nominations and headed the lists of the most anticipated games, which is why the team finally felt stability, confidence that they will bring the project to the end. The studio hired a dozen more experienced developers and got down to business. But already in September, something strange began to happen. Lucasfilm ordered to cancel the announcement of another game that the studio worked on – the Star Wars: First Assault shooter and forbidden to hire new employees, sort of temporarily temporarily. But this was very slowed down by the team. To continue the rate of development, they needed more employees. No one understood what was happening. They brilliantly showed themselves to E3, the audience was waiting for the game, and the developers were eager to make this game to make this game. For the first time in many years, everything began to improve, but unexpectedly lucasfilm seemed to turn away from them. Everything cleared up very quickly. On October 30, 2012, Disney announced that they were buying Lucasfilm, and therefore Lucasarts for four billion dollars.
Naturally, Lucasfilm would not make any announcements and increase the staff of employees before sale, Disney could have their own plans. And it was clear that they were primarily interested in films. Say that Lucasarts employees were shocked – it is like saying that Alderaan shook slightly. Although Disney representatives said to both journalists and the developers themselves that work on all projects would go on a regular mode, Lucasarts team members knew that during a group call, a representative of Disney spoke about the company’s plans to sell the rights to create games in star wars, and nothing to publish nothing to publish. And in general Disney headed for mobile games, not console. And Lucasarts had two games and both console. Many employees quickly quit, but it was still impossible to hire new ones, so the team was not that she could not expand, she could not even make up for losses. But the remaining employees continued to work, they hoped that the game about Bob Fett would fit perfectly into Disney’s plans to shoot a new trilogy of films. Her actions took place between the first two trilogs, so she would not interfere with the plots of new episodes. The developers have prepared a special demo for their new authorities, but did not receive any specific reaction. In this suspended state, they were half a year. All this time, the developers, with a bated breath, were waiting for what would happen to them and worked, hoping for the best. But you didn’t come here for a happy end? On April 3, 2013, Disney closed Lucasarts, having dismissed almost 150 employees and canceled all their projects, including those expected by all Star Wars 1313. Some developers went to drink to the nearest bar, others downloaded unfinished trailers and demo versions to flash drives, someone even stole the console samples issued for development.
But even after that, they still had hope. The EA top manager called the remnants of the Star Wars 1313 team to speak in front of Visceral-a studio known for the Dead Space series. Former members of Lucasarts hoped to join them and finish the game together. But it turned out that no one wanted to save their project, someone went on an interview and began to develop a completely different game of star wars. The last rays disappeared beyond the horizon, and the story of one of the oldest and most important studios in the industry ended.
The basis for this blog was the head of the book of a cool video game journalist Jason Schreyer “Blood Sweat and Pixel”, in which he held ten full -fledged investigations, took a bunch of interviews and told stories showing Gamdev from different sides. If you are interested in the backstage of Gamdev, the difficulties of developers and the price of our entertainment, then this book is simply required to read.
