LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC^[3] is an American ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language video game developer A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Sony's PlayStation 3, PSP, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii, Nintendo DS, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers and publisher A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer. The company was famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games A graphic adventure game is a form of adventure game. They are distinct from text adventures. Whereas a player must actively observe using commands such as "look" in a text-based adventure, graphic adventures revolutionized gameplay by making use of natural human perception. Eventually, the text parser interface associated with older, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s. Today, it publishes games primarily based on the Star Wars Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was originally released on May 25, 1977, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, spawning two sequels, released at three-year intervals. Sixteen years after the release of the trilogy's final film, the first in franchise, with several new Star Wars games due in 2010 and a new Indiana Jones game.

Company history

The company was founded in May 1982 … 19th century . 20th century . 21st century … as the video game development group of Lucasfilm Lucasfilm Limited is an American film production company founded by George Lucas in 1971, based in San Francisco, California. Lucas is the company's current chairman, and Micheline Chau is the president and COO Limited, the film production company of George Lucas George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, director and founder/chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd. He is best known for being the creator of the epic science fiction franchise Star Wars and joint creator of the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones. Today, Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially. Lucas had wanted his company to branch out into other areas of entertainment, and so he cooperated with Atari Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari SA to produce video games.

The first results of this collaboration were unique action games like Ballblazer in 1984, and Rescue on Fractalus!.^[4] Beta versions of both games were leaked to pirate bulletin boards exactly one week after Atari received unprotected copies for a marketing review, and were in wide circulation months before the original release date. In 1984, they were released for the Atari 5200 The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, or simply the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a replacement for the popular Atari 2600. The 5200 was created to compete with the Intellivision, but wound up more directly competing with the ColecoVision shortly after its release under the Lucasfilm Games label. Versions for home computers Home computers were a class of personal computers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as accessible personal computers, more capable than video game consoles. These computers typically cost much less than business, scientific or engineering-oriented desktop personal were not released until 1985, by publisher Epyx Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher in the late 1970s and entire 1980s. The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, originally using Epyx as a brand name for action-oriented games before renaming the company to match in 1983. Epyx published a long series of "hits" through the 1980s,. Lucasfilm's next two games were Koronis Rift and The Eidolon. Their first games were only developed by Lucasfilm, and a publisher would distribute the games. Atari published their games for Atari systems, Activision Activision is an American video game developer and publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO and president is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles. Its first products were cartridges for the Atari 2600 and Epyx would do their computer publishing. Maniac Mansion was one of the first games to be published and developed by Lucasfilm Games.

In 1990 … 19th century . 20th century . 21st century …, in a reorganization of the Lucas companies, the Games Division of Lucasfilm became part of the newly created LucasArts Entertainment Company, together with Industrial Light & Magic Industrial Light & Magic is an Academy Award-winning motion picture visual effects company that was founded in May 1975 by George Lucas and is owned by Lucasfilm. Lucas created the company when he discovered that the special effects department at 20th Century Fox was shut down after he was given the green light for his production of the movie and Skywalker Sound. Later ILM and Skywalker Sound were consolidated in Lucas Digital Ltd. and LucasArts became the official name of the former Games Division. In 1993, LucasArts decided to base a game off of the Star Wars Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise conceived by George Lucas. The first film in the franchise was originally released on May 25, 1977, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, spawning two sequels, released at three-year intervals. Sixteen years after the release of the trilogy's final film, the first in franchise.^[5]

Logo

The original Lucasfilm Games logo was based upon the existing Lucasfilm movie logo. There were a number of variations on it.

The long-lived LucasArts logo, affectionately known as the "Gold Guy", was introduced in 1991 and consisted of a crude gold-colored figure resembling a petroglyph Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, pecking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs are found world-wide, and are often (, standing on a purple letter "L" inscribed with the company name. The figure had its hands up in the air, as if a sun were rising from behind him. It was also said to resemble an eye, with the rays of the sun as eyelashes. The logo was revised in late 2005, losing the letter "L" pedestal and introducing a more rounded version of the gold-colored figure. In the games, the figure sometimes does an action like throw a lightsaber A lightsaber is a science fiction weapon in the Star Wars movies and the Expanded Universe. The lightsaber consists of a polished metal hilt which projects a blade of energy about one meter long. The lightsaber is the signature weapon of the Jedi order and their Sith counterparts, both of whom can use them for offence, or to deflect blaster bolts or cast Force Lightning. The logo is possibly a reference to the ending of George Lucas' first film, THX 1138 THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas, from a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch. It depicts a dystopian future in which a high level of control is exerted upon the populace through omnipresent, faceless, android police officers and mandatory, regulated use of special drugs to suppress emotion, including sexual desire, in which the silhouette of the main character stands with his arms raised during sunset.

In 1998, LucasArts approached the Finnish game developer Remedy Entertainment, citing that their logo was copied from the top portion of the LucasArts logo and threatening legal action.^[6] Remedy was by that time already in the process of redesigning their logo, so they complied by taking the old logo offline from their website and introducing a new logo a little later.

Adventure games

The first adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games was Labyrinth (1986), based on the Lucasfilm movie of the same name. ICOM's Déjà Vu inspired the 1987 title Maniac Mansion^{[citation needed]} which introduced SCUMM Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion is a scripting language developed at LucasArts (known at the time as Lucasfilm Games) to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion, the scripting language behind most of the company's later adventure offerings. The adventures released in the following years, such as Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (1988), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure (1989), LOOM (1990) and especially the critically-acclaimed The Secret of Monkey Island The Secret of Monkey Island is an adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games. The game spawned a number of sequels, collectively known as the Monkey Island series. Released in 1990, The Secret of Monkey Island is the fifth game to use the SCUMM engine. It made a name for LucasArts as an adventure game development studio (1990), helped Lucasfilm Games build a reputation as one of the leading developers in the genre. It was often referred to as one of the two big names in the field, competing with Sierra On-line Sierra Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams. Based in Los Angeles, California, the company was last owned by Activision, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard as a developer of high quality adventures. The first half of the 1990s was the heyday for the company's adventure fame, with classic titles such as Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (1991), Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992) and the Maniac Mansion sequel Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (1993).

In the latter half of the decade, the popularity of adventure games faded and the costs associated with game development increased as high-resolution art and CD quality audio became standard fare. The PC market wanted titles that would show off expensive new graphics cards A video card, video adapter, graphics-accelerator card, display adapter or graphics card is an expansion card whose function is to generate and output images to a display. Many video cards offer added functions, such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, video capture, TV-tuner adapter, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 decoding, FireWire, light to best effect, a change replicated in the home console market as the 3D capabilities of the PlayStation The PlayStation brand is a line of video game consoles created and developed by Sony Computer Entertainment, it was first introduced by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, 1994. The PlayStation currently spans the fifth, sixth, and seventh generations of video gaming. The brand consists of a total of three consoles, a media center,, Sega Saturn The Sega Saturn is a 32-bit video game console that was first released on November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 11, 1995 in North America, and July 8, 1995 in Europe. The system was discontinued in North America, Europe, and Australia in 1998, and in 2000 in Japan and Nintendo 64 The Nintendo 64 , often abbreviated as N64, is Nintendo's third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil. It is Nintendo's last home console to use dictated the nature of the majority of games produced for those platforms. The adventure genre—two-dimensional, focused on story, script and puzzle solving—was no longer popular with the masses of new gamers.

LucasArts still managed to release moderately commercially successful titles: The Curse of Monkey Island The Curse of Monkey Island is an adventure game developed and published by LucasArts, and the third game in the Monkey Island series. It was released in 1997 and followed the successful games The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. The game is the twelfth and last LucasArts game to use the SCUMM engine, which was (1997) was the last LucasArts adventure game to retain traditional two-dimensional graphics and point-and-click Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button (click), or other pointing device. An example of point-and-click is in hypermedia, where users click on hyperlinks to navigate from document to document interface. Grim Fandango Grim Fandango is a personal computer game in the graphic adventure genre released by LucasArts in 1998 and primarily written by Tim Schafer. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered, static backgrounds. As with other LucasArts adventure games, the player must converse with other characters (1998) was LucasArts' first attempt to convert 2D adventure to a 3D environment. The game interface suffered most from this conversion, with control of the protagonist becoming unwieldy and less intuitive than with the traditional mouse interface. However, the highly stylised visuals, superb voice acting and sophisticated writing more than made up for this flaw, earning Grim Fandango many plaudits, including GameSpot's Game of the Year award.^[7]

Escape from Monkey Island (2000), the fourth installment to the Monkey Island series, featured the same control scheme as Grim Fandango and was generally well received. It is to date the last adventure game the company has released. A sequel to Full Throttle and a new Sam & Max game were in development but these projects were cancelled, in 2003 and 2004 respectively, before the games were finished. When the rights to the Sam and Max franchise expired in 2005, the creator of Sam and Max, Steve Purcell, took ownership. He then licensed Sam and Max to Telltale Games to be developed into an episodic game. Telltale Games is made up primarily of former LucasArts employees who had worked on the Sam and Max sequel and were let go after the project was canceled.^[8]

LucasArts halted adventure game development for the next five years, focusing instead on their Star Wars games. They remained silent and did not re-release their old games on digital distribution Digital distribution, digital delivery or electronic software distribution is the practice of delivering content without the use of physical media, typically by downloading via the internet straight to a consumer's home. Digital distribution bypasses conventional physical distribution media, such as paper or DVDs. The term digital distribution is platforms, as other studios were doing at the time. However, in 2002, the company pledged that at least fifty percent of its releases would have nothing to do with Star Wars.^[5] It was not until 2009 Categories: 2000s in video gaming | 2009 | Years in video gaming that LucasArts returned to the genre. On June 1, 2009, they announced both The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, a remake The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source. For example, 2001's Ocean's Eleven is a remake of the 1960 film, while 1989's Batman is a re-interpretation of the comic book source material of the original game with updated graphics, music and voice work, and Tales of Monkey Island, a new episodic installment in the Monkey Island series developed by Telltale Games

Then, on July 6, they announced that they would be re-releasing a number of their classic games, including Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and LOOM, on Steam Steam is a digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer and communications platform developed by Valve Corporation. It is used to distribute a large number of games and related media entirely over the internet, from small independent efforts to larger, more popular games. Steam is set apart from similar services primarily by its. The re-releases were, for the first time, native versions built for Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal. This was the first time in many years that the studio had offered any support for its classic adventure titles.

The release of the unofficial SCUMM virtual machine A virtual machine is a software implementation of a machine (i.e. a computer) that executes programs like a physical machine, ScummVM, has led to something of a resurgence for LucasArts adventure games among present-day gamers. Using ScummVM, legacy adventure titles can easily be run on modern computers and even more unusual platforms such as video game consoles, mobile phones and PDAs The term PDA was first used on January 7, 1992, by Apple Computer CEO John Sculley at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, referring to the Apple Newton. In 1996, Nokia introduced the first mobile phone with full PDA functionality, the 9000 Communicator, which has since grown to become the world's best-selling PDA and which spawned.

Military simulations

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Lucasfilm Games developed a series of military vehicle simulation games Vehicle simulation games are a genre of video games which attempt to provide the player with a realistic interpretation of operating various kinds of vehicles. This includes automobiles, aircraft, watercraft, spacecraft, military vehicles, and a variety of other vehicles. The main challenge is to master driving and steering the vehicle from the, the first of which were the naval simulations PHM Pegasus in 1986 and Strike Fleet in 1987.^[9] These two titles were published by Electronic Arts Electronic Arts, Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) is an international developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers responsible for its games. Originally, EA for a variety of computer platforms, including PC, Commodore 64 The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982. Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US $595. Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore MAX Machine, the C64 features 64 kilobytes of memory with sound and graphics and Apple II The Apple II was one of the first highly successful mass produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and introduced in 1977. In terms of ease of use, features and expandability the Apple II was a major technological advancement over its predecessor, the Apple I, a limited.

In 1988, Battlehawks 1942 launched a trilogy of World War II Albania · Australia · Austria · Azerbaijan · Belarus · Belgium · Brazil · Bulgaria · Burma · Cambodia · Canada · Ceylon (Sri Lanka) · Channel Islands · China · Czechoslovakia · Denmark · Dutch East Indies · Egypt · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Gibraltar · Greece · Greenland · Hong Kong · Hungary · Iceland · air combat simulations, giving the player a chance to fly as an American or Japanese pilot in the Pacific Theater The Pacific Theater of Operations was the World War II area of military activity in the Pacific Ocean and the countries bordering it, a geographic scope that reflected the operational and administrative command structures of the American forces during that period. (The other areas of the Pacific War -- the China Burma India Theater, the South-East. Battlehawks 1942 was followed by Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain (1989), recreating the battle between the Luftwaffe Luftwaffe (German pronunciation: [ˈlʊftvafə] ; English: air-weapon) is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956 and RAF The Royal Air Force is the United Kingdom's air force, the oldest independent air force in the world. Formed on 1 April 1918, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history ever since, playing a large part in World War II and in more recent conflicts for Britain's air supremacy. The trilogy ended with Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe in 1991, in which the player could choose to fly on either the American or German side. The trilogy was lauded for its historical accuracy and detailed supplementary material—Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, for instance, was accompanied by a 224-page historical manual.

The World War II trilogy was created by a team led by Lawrence Holland, a game designer who later founded Totally Games. Totally Games would continue to develop games almost exclusively to LucasArts, the most noted outcome of the symbiosis being the X-Wing series. They were also responsible for LucasArts' 2003 return to the aerial battles of World War II with Secret Weapons Over Normandy, a title released on PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony. The successor to the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2 forms part of the PlayStation series of video game consoles. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was released a year later in Japan. Its primary competitors, Xbox The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, and PC.

First Star Wars games

Even though LucasArts had created games based on other Lucasfilm properties before (Labyrinth Labyrinth is a 1986 British/American fantasy film directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas, and designed by Brian Froud. Henson collaborated on the screenwriting with children's author Dennis Lee and Monty Python alumnus Terry Jones, Indiana Jones Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr. Ph.D. is a fictional American adventurer, OSS operative, professor of archaeology, and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials. The character first appeared in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, to be), they did not use the most promising Lucasfilm license until the early 1990s: Star Wars action games began appearing on the Nintendo consoles, but were developed by other companies for LucasArts. The first in-house development was the space combat simulator X-Wing, developed by Larry Holland's team, which went on to spawn a successful series.

The CD-ROM-only Star Wars game Rebel Assault became one of the biggest successes of the company and was considered a killer app for CD-ROM drives in the early 1990s.

From 2005 to 2007, LucasArts published the three games in the Lego Star Wars series.

First-person shooters

After the unprecedented success of id Software's Doom the PC gaming market shifted towards production of three-dimensional first person shooters. LucasArts contributed to this trend with the 1995 release of Star Wars: Dark Forces, a first person shooter that successfully transplanted the Doom formula to a Star Wars setting. The Dark Forces Strategy guide claims that development was well underway before Doom was released and that the game was pushed back once Doom hit shelves so that it could be polished. The game was well received and spawned a new franchise: the Jedi Knight games. This began with the sequel to Dark Forces, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II released in 1997; this game reflected the changing face of PC gaming, being one of the first games to appreciably benefit when used in conjunction with a dedicated 3D graphics card like 3dfx's Voodoo range. The game received an expansion pack, Mysteries of the Sith, in 1998 and a full sequel in 2002 with Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. 2003's Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy can be seen as a spin-off from the series, but was less well received by reviewers, who complained that the franchise was becoming formulaic.

Apart from Star Wars-themed 3D shooters, LucasArts also created the western-themed game Outlaws in 1997 and Armed and Dangerous (in collaboration with Planet Moon Studios) in 2003.

In the New Millennium

As the quantity of Star Wars games increased, many critics felt the quality began to drop; this was especially noted with the titles released since the cinematic release of The Phantom Menace.

In 2002, LucasArts recognized that the over-reliance on Star Wars was reducing the quality of its output, and announced that future releases would be at least 50% non-Star Wars-related. However, many of the original titles were either unsuccessful or even cancelled before release and currently LucasArts has again mainly Star Wars titles in production.

2003 saw the fruitful collaboration of LucasArts and BioWare on the exceptionally well reviewed role-playing game, Knights of the Old Republic. Combining a three-dimensional environment with the type of storytelling and writing that made LucasArts' early adventure games so memorable, this game was seen as breathing new life into the Star Wars franchise. Its 2004 sequel Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords continued in the same vein, attempting to adopt a similar template as the original, uniting voice acting with an unfolding story which picked up where the last game left off. However, LucasArts was criticized for forcing the developer Obsidian Entertainment to release the sequel too early, resulting in a significant amount of unfinished content being cut from the game and what many consider to be a disappointing and convoluted storyline with an incomplete ending. Also the rush release of this game to the PC platform caused many bugs and crashes. This still has not been fixed by patches.

In 2003 LucasArts and the Star Wars franchise also branched out in a new direction—the world of the MMORPG, with the creation of Star Wars Galaxies. After a successful launch, the first expansion, Jump to Lightspeed, was released in 2004. The new expansion featured the addition of real-time space combat. This was continued in Rage of the Wookies, an additional expansion which added an additional planet for users to explore. Also, a new expansion, Trials of Obi-Wan was released on November 1, 2005 consisting of several new missions focusing on the Episode 3 planet, Mustafar. While Star Wars Galaxies still retains a devoted following, it has also alienated many players. Although it is currently the most popular class in the game, Star Wars Galaxies has chosen to ignore the timeline established in the original films, during which the game is set, and has allowed players to play as Jedi characters. The game has also undergone several major redesigns, which have been received with decidedly mixed reactions by players. Perhaps in one of the most telling examples of problems with the game, smugglers are actually still unable to smuggle, over three years after the game launched. Improvements into the game are still undergoing with the publish plan giving all the combat and non-combat professions diversity in skill tree boxes similar to the well-known MMO World of Warcraft.

Restructuring under Jim Ward

In April 2004, Jim Ward, VP of marketing, online and global distributions at Lucasfilm, was appointed president of LucasArts.^[10] Ward performed a top-to-bottom audit of LucasArts infrastructure, describing the company's state as "quite a mess."^[11] In 2003, LucasArts had reportedly grossed just over $100 million according to NPD, primarily from its Star Wars titles – significantly less than the grosses from the year's top single titles such as Halo.^[10] Ward produced a five-year investment plan to refit the company. Previous Star Wars games had been produced by external developers such as Raven Software, Bioware and Obsidian; Ward now prioritized making LucasArts' internal game development work effectively and adapt to the evolving games industry. Star Wars: Battlefront, Star Wars: Republic Commando, and Star Wars: Episode III survived cuts that closed down other in-development games and reduced staff from about 450 to 190 employees.^[11]

In 2004, LucasArts released Star Wars: Battlefront, based on the same formula as the popular Battlefield series of games. It ended up becoming the best-selling Star Wars game of all time to that point, aided by a marketing tie-in with the original trilogy DVD release.^[12] Its sequel, Star Wars: Battlefront II, was released November 1, 2005 and features new locales such as Episode III planets Mustafar, Mygeeto, etc., in addition to space combat, playable Jedi, and new special units like Bothan spies and Imperial officers.

In May 2005, LucasArts released Revenge of the Sith, a third person action game based on the film. Also in 2005, LucasArts released Star Wars: Republic Commando, and one of their few non-Star Wars games, Mercenaries, developed by Pandemic Studios.

On February 16, 2006, LucasArts released Star Wars: Empire at War, a real-time strategy game developed by Petroglyph. September 12, 2006 saw the release of Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, the sequel to the popular Lego Star Wars: The Video Game. Lego Star Wars II follows the same basic format as the first game, but, as the name indicates, covers the original Star Wars trilogy. On September 16, 2008, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was released to mixed reviews, though quickly became the best-selling Star Wars game of all time.

Jim Ward left the company early February 2008, for personal reasons. He was replaced by Howard Roffman as interim president, with Darrell Rodriguez taking Roffman's place in April 2008.^[13][14] Rodriguez served a short period before resigning, with a Lucasfilm board of Directors and a games industry veteran: Jerry Bowerman filling in during the transition.^[15][16]

Future

In a 2006 GameSpot interview, Monkey Island co-creator Ron Gilbert claimed that the true secret of Monkey Island has yet to be revealed, and that he wished to make a fifth Monkey Island game to conclude the series.^[17] During television network G4's coverage of the 2006 E3 Convention, a LucasArts executive was asked about the return of popular franchises such as Monkey Island. The executive responded that the company was currently focusing on new franchises, and that LucasArts may return to the "classic franchises" in 2015, though it was unclear as to whether the date was put forwards as an actual projection, or hyperbole.^[18]

On June 1, 2009, LucasArts announced a re-imagining of the Secret of Monkey Island titled The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition. This release includes updates graphics, sound and music, and full voice acting. In addition, Telltale Games also announced a new episodic game in the Monkey Island franchise titled "Tales of Monkey Island".

The successor to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords has been announced in the form of the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, currently under development by BioWare.^[19]

In May 2007, LucasArts announced Fracture and stated that "new intellectual properties serve a vital role to the growth of LucasArts". Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction was labelled the number one new IP in 2005 and Thrillville the number one new children's IP in 2006.^[20] Free Radical Design announced that they lost the rights to develop Star Wars: Battlefront III in October, prior to them going into administration. It had been in development for two years.^[21] They will also publish Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes for all current systems.^[22]

Other releases

From 1995 to 1998, LucasArts released an annual compilation of games, the LucasArts Archives series, each containing three to six games plus a selection of demos of recent and upcoming games. The second and fourth volumes of LucasArts Archives were Star Wars-themed. Later games published under the LucasArts Archives brand were budget-priced reissues of individual games.

In 1996, LucasArts released Afterlife, a sim game in which the player builds their own Heaven and Hell, with several jokes and puns (such as a prison in Hell called San Quentin Tarantino). In 2002, LucasArts released a compilation CD filled with music from their past games. The album is titled The Best of LucasArts Original Soundtracks and features music from The Monkey Island Series, Grim Fandango, Outlaws, and The Dig.

A video game titled Traxion was announced. Traxion was a rhythm game which was under development for the PlayStation Portable by British developer Kuju Entertainment, scheduled to be released in Q4 2006 by LucasArts, but was instead cancelled in January 2007. The game was to feature a number of minigames, and would support imported songs from the player's own mp3 library as well as the game's bundled collection.

See also

• List of LucasArts games
• List of Star Wars video games
• LucasArts adventure games
• SCUMM
• iMUSE
• GrimE
• SITH
• INSANE

Notes

1. ^ "LucasArts Names New President". IGN. June 8, 2010. http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/109/1095685p1.html. Retrieved June 9, 2010.
2. ^ "Key facts". LucasArts. Archived from the original on January 4, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070104151519/http://www.lucasarts.com/press/keyfacts.htm. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
3. ^ LucasArts (June 20, 2000). "LucasArts Entertainment Company Names New Director Of Business Affairs". Press release. http://www.lucasarts.com/company/release/news20000620.html. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
4. ^ "About Us". LucasArts.com. http://www.lucasarts.com/company/about/page4.html. Retrieved 2010-04-22.
5. ^ ^{a b} "A Short History of LucasArts". Edge Online. 2006-08-28. http://www.edge-online.com/features/a-short-history-lucasarts. Retrieved 2010-04-22.
6. ^ Siegler, Joe (July 17, 1998). "Remedy Entertainment & Lucasarts". 3D Realms. http://www.3drealms.com/news/1998/07/remedy_entertai.html. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
7. ^ "Game of the Year". GameSpot. 1998. http://www.gamespot.com/features/awards1998/gameofyear2.html. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
8. ^ Morganti, Emily (September 15, 2005). "Telltale Games secures rights to Sam & Max". Adventure Games. http://www.adventuregamers.com/newsitem.php?id=1061. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
9. ^ "Game History". LucasArts. http://www.lucasarts.com/company/about/page4.html. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
10. ^ ^{a b} Cohen, David S. (2005-02-13). "Is the force still with him? As 'Wars' end, Lucas empire is at a crossroads". Daily Variety (Reed Business Information).
11. ^ ^{a b} Smith, Rogue Leaders, 176.
12. ^ Smith, Rogue Leaders, 177-179.
13. ^ LucasArts (April 2, 2008). "Darrell Rodriguez Named President of LucasArts". Press release. http://www.lucasarts.com/company/release/news20080402.html. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
14. ^ Ling, Frank (April 2, 2008). "LucasArts president, Jim Ward, quits". Gamernode. http://gamernode.com/news/5823-lucasarts-president-jim-ward-quits/index.html. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
15. ^ Reilly, Jim (May 7, 2010). "LucasArts President Darrell Rodriguez Resigns". Gamespot. http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/108/1088281p1.html. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
16. ^ http://www.gamespot.com/news/6261601.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop%3Btitle%3B14
17. ^ Kasavin, Greg (June 30, 2006). "Designer Threads feat. Ron Gilbert". GameSpot. http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6153188/p-2.html. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
18. ^ "LucasArts Jim Ward talks Indiana Jones and Empire". G4Tv. May 11, 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-09-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20070926221959/http://www.g4tv.com/pile_player.aspx?video_key=11326. Retrieved 2007-05-28.
19. ^ Klepek, Patrick (October 21, 2008). "LucasArts, BioWare Confirm MMO 'Star Wars: The Old Republic'". MTV Multiplayer. http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/21/lucasarts-bioware-confirm-mmo-star-wars-the-old-republic/. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
20. ^ "LucasArts and Day 1 Studios Reshape Next-Generation Entertainment With Fracture". LucasArts. May 2, 2007. http://www.lucasarts.com/company/release/news20070502.html. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
21. ^ Graft, Kris (December 18, 2008). "Source: Free Radical Locked Up". Edge. http://www.edge-online.com/features/source-free-radical-locked-up. Retrieved 2009-08-30.
22. ^ LucasArts (May 11, 2009). "Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes Comes to the Rescue This September". Press release. http://www.lucasarts.com/company/release/news20090511.html. Retrieved 2009-05-16.

References

• Smith, Rob (2008). Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. ISBN 9780811861847.

External links

• Official LucasArts website
• The Workshop - Official LucasArts Blog
• The International House of Mojo fan-site
• LucasArts on MobyGames
• LucasArts at Allgame
• LucasArts at the Internet Movie Database

Categories: Companies established in 1982 | Lucasfilm | Video game companies of the United States | Video game developers | Companies based in San Francisco, California

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