> 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...
In other words: by closing the studio we can just collect checks from licensing our IPs which gets turned into bonuses for our executives while we don't have to pay any developers, artists, designers or other filthy wage slaves.
While this is true, it is still making work for said wage slave proletariat... and eventually it'll likely be the same people getting that money now, assuming they stay in the same industry.
I'm not saying it's a great thing, and I agree that it's likely motivated at least in part by a reduction in cost to justify some lovely top-level bonuses, but the work isn't disappearing. It's just being sent elsewhere.
Let's say that everyone who got laid off today at LucasArts forms a new studio and somehow lands the contract to make the next Star Wars games.
I guarantee you that their pay will be much lower from that contract, and their new independent studio will probably not get a favorable (if any) portion of the back end on sales. That means that not only will they get paid less to make the game, but even if it is successful, the result of their hard work will not result in much improvement to their situation and indeed they will then have to land a contract to make the next game.
My point is this a move that favors only the executives and fucks over the folks who do the real work. And in reality rather than hypotheticals, they are all out of work today and must find new jobs, a shitty position for anyone to be in and my heart is with all of them.
Spending a good chunk of your career in game development has a tendency to make it rough to job-hunt outside of games (with the exception of programmers - game programmers seem to get no shortage of offers from SV startups and bigger firms). Some of these people are very much 'locked in'; they probably moved to the bay area to work at LucasArts and brought families with them.
I mean, I interviewed at the LucasArts campus in SF maybe a year ago and the people there definitely didn't act like they were constantly at risk of losing their jobs. It was a big, established studio with a long history, and the team seemed to have a lot of people in just such a situation. 'Go work someplace else instead' is not a simple proposition for these people.
It would be interesting to see the details of this - surely if the contract is "terminated" then they're under no contractual obligations any longer.
If the company who were the first party to the contract no longer exists then the contract is void surely. (Yes "or successor in title" probably covers that one).
Really? I think it's translating it to plain english and it's a lot nicer than what's actually going through my head about the people making that decision.
Disney closed down the studio, which yes, really sucks for the people who worked there. I empathize for all the guys and gals that lost their jobs from this decision. Having said that, it may have been the right call for Disney. Disney has a number of game studios, and this one may have been redundant. This is what happens when one company buys another and there is overlap in org-structure. LucasFilm animators and operations people already got the axe. I worry for them more than I do for game engineers (their skills are in high-demand).
In other words: by closing the studio we can just collect checks from licensing our IPs which gets turned into bonuses for our executives while we don't have to pay any developers, artists, designers or other filthy wage slaves.