Articles

The Calm Immediately After The Storm 04 Mar, 2004 / Comments: 22

By Jake


Well, now that we've gone and confirmed many people at LucasArts' worst fears about Mixnmojo, what's there to do? Until E3 rolls around and we get heaps of new things to poke at, we'll probably be scaling back on the current LucasArts coverage a bit, but you saw that coming right? What does that mean? It means, basically, we'll be focusing on news about the LucasArts community, Tim Schafer's upcoming game Psychonauts, and maybe some more ranty editorials.

So, how about yesterday, eh? In case you missed the ruckus, take a peek at the reader comments on Slashdot, Gamespot, Evil Avatar, Evil Avatar again, Blue's, Blue's again, Shacknews, and a couple of threads and an article over at Adventure Gamers. Also, from the responses in those threads (and from WWHS), one might guess LucasArts has had a few letters emailed to them.

Now, how about Mojo's editorial? I mean, kick ass we got Slashdotted. Our feeble server was completely owned, twice. Thanks to all who read it.

As for how LucasArts might take it, as I said earlier I'm sure we've confirmed all their worst fears about this site. I don't know what to say other than we did the best we could. I'm sure we got some facts dead wrong, and we probably pointed the finger at some people who didn't deserve it, and stepped on a few extra toes, but that's the best its going to get, and we stand by what's been said. We're obviously not LucasArts, and much as we'd like to we don't live under the meeting table in the conference room, we're a fan site. We don't know exactly whats going on, so we made educated guesses. So, something had to be said about Sam & Max 2 and the greater state of things at LucasArts, and harnessing our brains and the past six to seven years of watching them on this site, we took our best stab at it. Anyone is welcome to talk about it, email me at jake@mixnmojo.com.

The fact that so many people agreed with it is making me worry a little less, and I hope it woke the right people up, or at least poked them a little bit in places that needed a good poking.

Yikes. All this inner-worry and angst, this is beginning to sound like a LiveJournal or something. ... Oh God, noooo...

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: soft cell - tainted love
22

22 Comments

  • jp-30 on 05 Mar, 2004, 22:24…
    The entire Marketing team at LucasArts should be ashamed of themselves.

    If they can't sell "Sam & Max", a hugely anticipated title with fantastic pre-release coverage, they shouldn't be in the business at all.

    For shame!
  • guybrushthedwarf on 05 Mar, 2004, 06:11…
    What suprise me the most in this thing is that LucasArts, Steve Purcell and everyone were still communicating about the game a week ago. I Mean, For Full Throttle 2, we didn't have any informations for a month or two whereas here, everyone was talking about how fine it was going.
  • DonGrif on 05 Mar, 2004, 04:38…
    Maybe LucasArts did this just to see how the gaming world reacted? If they didn't get any response in the cancellation of S&M2 they knew that it was safe to cancel it. If the whole gaming world got up and got pissed they knew that they should continue to make the game...

    Sorry for my bad english...
  • GregD on 05 Mar, 2004, 05:22…
    I doubt LEC would take such a risk. Fact is if they go back on their decision now they will look stupid.

    OK they already look stupid... but they would look even stupider, if that's a word :)

    I don't see them coming back to S&M2, I see more garunteed cash ins on Star Wars titles.
  • Sheriff Gringo on 04 Mar, 2004, 20:51…
    So Jake, what were LEC's "worst suspicisions" about Mojo that they've now had confirmed?

    ? ?
  • Jake on 05 Mar, 2004, 17:27…
    I just suspect there are people at LucasArts who don't like the site very much. There were the "anonymous" forum posts a long while back about how Mojo is a totally biased rage machine and secretly actually hates LucasArts, despite its constant dedicated coverage for years.

    Also Gringo I must admit that I didn't vote for you in the California presidential primary :( Sorry ~
  • GregD on 04 Mar, 2004, 19:50…
    Just reading over the editorial again, it just shows you that the LEC sales team couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery unless the beer had the star wars logo on it. It's absolutely ridiculous.

    Why they are still employed in that company beats me.. The VP isnt doing himself any favours either.

    SimonJ probably wanted to get out of the company ASAP because he probably saw all of this coming.
  • Jake on 04 Mar, 2004, 20:37…
    I know that the editorial we wrote does a lot of somewhat specific finger pointing, but really it seems like quite a lot of the company is riddled with problems, and they must surely know it.
  • GregD on 05 Mar, 2004, 05:19…
    It may be finger pointing and we may not know all the facts. But I think any lucasarts fan (read former fan) knows deep down that there are some real problems in the marketing/sales dept. in that company.

    If they can't sell anything other than Star Wars tie ins then that just shows you that they can't do their job properlly.

    I know it seems harsh but they have canceled 2 games in a row which have nothing to do with SW simply because they have this stupid idea that its too risky to market it.

    They are cowards. Look at Revolution Software, they have taken risks with the likes of Broken Sword 3 as they haven't followed the usual formula.

    The real pioneers are those who take risks in the name of creativity, that used to be LEC but no more >:(
  • Gabez on 04 Mar, 2004, 19:12…
    Yeah, at least we've still got Psychonauts. :)

    I can say enough how much I respect Mojo for this... after working so close with LEC it can't have been easy to break away, but now you're all my heroes. Not you, LucasArts. Mojo.
  • Entity on 04 Mar, 2004, 16:35…
    I'm looking forward to your extended Double Fine content. :) I'm still extremely pissed at LucasArts.
  • telarium on 04 Mar, 2004, 16:35…
    I hope LucasArts recognizes that while Star Wars games may bring in some more immediate cash, they're damaging their reputation. In the long run, that has the potential of costing them more dollars than anything. If they once again gain the reputation of being a Star Wars gaming company that makes derivative titles or a company that has to cancel troubled titles, people are going to associate poor quality and questionable reliability with the company brand. That kind of damage is far more difficult to repair.

    Now all I have to look forward to is Psychonauts, and that's not even LucasArts. This will probably mean little participation on my part in the community for a long time.

    But there's always The Game Formerly Known as Free Agent.
  • LucasTones on 04 Mar, 2004, 15:55…
    So I guess I need to buy an X-Box now then...
  • manny_c44 on 04 Mar, 2004, 19:30…
    Yeah, me too. I think I'll justs steal one...or borrow a freinds when psychonauts comes out.
  • jp-30 on 04 Mar, 2004, 20:09…
    Is there any possibility of a PC port post x-box release?

  • manny_c44 on 04 Mar, 2004, 20:54…
    No, its X-box only. But that doesn't mean there won't be an Xbox emulator by that time, which means if you have a good enough computer it would play fine.

    I mean it use Direct X, but who knows how long until an Xbox emulaotr, could be quite a while.
  • JBRAA on 04 Mar, 2004, 15:07…
    Great work Jake!
  • Josty on 04 Mar, 2004, 15:06…
    Let me say that MixnMojo handled this thing in exemplary fashion.

    I'm still VERY bummed out about what happened. I just can't believe the stupidity of corporations. I didn't think, or I didn't WANT to think that Lucasarts was just another faceless corporation. But they are. And it's such a huge tragedy.

    At the same time I think it's worth mentioning that people mustn't direct their anger at George Lucas, whom I still hold in high esteem, and who hardly has anything to do with Lucasarts.

    An era is over now. Unless they make a 360 turn around, I'm done with Lucasarts. I'm going to head over to Doublefine.com now, and see what's going on.

    Maybe I'll play The Dig a bit, later. Now that was a great game.
  • Jake on 04 Mar, 2004, 15:16…
    LucasArts isn't going to do a 360 on Sam & Max, as much as that would rule. I'm sure they had some decent reasons for cancelling this specific title, but they've definitely got a long trail of disappointing moves behind them at this point. Its really a shame they couldn't have seen this earlier, like, before they announced the game, or could have actively tried to fix the problem when they first realized there was one, probably months ago. Maybe they did really try, and were just unsuccessful, but if that's the case its a bit of a disservice to everyone who was waiting for the game to just dismiss the whole thing with a one sentence quote in a 3 sentence press release.
  • Josty on 04 Mar, 2004, 15:24…
    Indeed.

    The thing is, it's very unlikely that the game was bad, what with the talented people making it. So it was cancelled because of cowardly management. Very sad.

    Also, let me point out that I meant a 180 degree turn around! 360 is what they're currently doing at Lucasarts, with every new game they release!
  • Marek on 04 Mar, 2004, 15:08…
    Well, I'm not sure if a 360 degree turn around will do much good, but it's the thought that counts ;)
  • Josty on 04 Mar, 2004, 15:21…
    Heh, I'm too tired. I can't believe I wrote 360. I MEANT 180, PEOPLE! 180!!

    Sorry about that. How truly embarassing.