LucasArts undergoing "major restructuring"

  • By Curt Feldman, GameSpot
  • Posted Aug 13, 2004 12:25 pm PT

Star Wars games publisher confirms laying off staff and moving Episode III development off-site. KOTOR 3 development stalled.

Responding to yesterday's reports that it had laid off staff, LucasArts today said in a statement that it was undergoing "a major restructuring of its development studio." A notice on the company's Web site outlined some of the restructuring's details, including layoffs of 31 staffers and the appointment of Peter Hirschmann as vice president of product development. Hirschmann, a two-year LucasArts vet and former Electronic Arts producer, had been managing the development of Star Wars: Battlefront and Mercenaries.

The restructuring is the first major change to be officially announced by LucasArts since Jim Ward took over as its president. “Since joining LucasArts in early May, I’ve taken a hard, critical look at our business," he said in the statement. "I’ve come to the conclusion that to make LucasArts thrive, and to position ourselves for the long-term future, we need to make some fundamental changes.”

Today, LucasArts began to outline what exactly said changes would entail. Firstly, in-house development will be scaled way back, because "the company will be concentrating on fewer titles," read the statement. While Star Wars: Battlefront and Star Wars Republic Commando remain at LucasArts, the publisher has farmed out development on its as-yet-untitled Episode III game to The Collective. The Southern California studio has developed several titles for LucasArts, including Wrath Unleashed and Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.

On the project front, an informed industry source said the team attached to the early stages of development on Knights of the Old Republic 3 was let go in yesterday's layoff.

8 Comments

  • Abq

    Posted Aug 13, 2007 10:35 pm PT

    what idiot lays off a team that's working on a sequel in the chain of KOTOR which ranked 9.1/Superb on gamespot? These guys are killing themselves... There better be a KOTOR3, and it better NOT suck since LucasArts felt so confident in themselves as to liquidate the staff working on KOTOR3. If it sucks, reroll, remake, rehire, lrn2makegame. Any of those will work.

  • rktPYZQShWz

    Posted Jul 7, 2006 7:29 am PT

    Damn it I need kotor 3 and please don't make it a horror game like kotor 2 about every place in that is scary.!!

    This game is going to probbaly come late 07 or beg 08

    just my though

  • sculles

    Posted Jun 2, 2006 7:49 pm PT

    apparently ur right wolf, according to katarn, but thought i should point out that it says nothing about the game itself being canceled, just that the kotor3 team was laid off.
    Although it is a possibility, perhaps they just weren't doing it up to par that lucasarts is talking about for the future, and they are just getting a whole new team in, or sending the whole thing out to another company for them to design the entire project, never know.
    Either way, too early to cry about it being canceled, but i agree that it would be a shame if that series is canceled, now that they have a great new system in the 360 to work with.

    Also i guess on a little side note, however very little, just watched an interview on bioware's new title mass effect, and they discussed briefly that they have a new place in texas i believe, but somewhere in the united states, and also said that they are not gonna say what the project is yet, so it is possible that the game is currently in development

  • katarn121

    Posted May 3, 2006 10:46 am PT

    Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • wolf8394

    Posted Apr 12, 2006 5:04 pm PT

    Yes, thank you all for pointing out how stupid LucasArts is and describing your disappointment, but does anyone have anything intelligent to say? We all love KOTOR, or at least anyone reading this does, but complaining doesn't help. We can do nothing about the situation except keep ourselves informed: who is taking over the project, when might it come out, any word on changes to gameplay, etc. So... anyone? Info?

  • fmafan3030

    Posted Mar 15, 2006 10:29 am PT

    Man lucasarts sure is stupid "lets cancel are most popular game", there ****** stupid

  • Ajdaha

    Posted Feb 5, 2006 6:37 am PT

    Lol, I love how stupid people do jobs they are **** at.
    How can you cancel Kotor III when the Kotor series is the best you've ever churned out?
    Do you guys enjoy picking ****?

  • Spartan4001

    Posted Dec 18, 2005 9:22 pm PT

    NOOOO I NEED KOTOR 3!!!

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