The International House of Mojo

i have something to admit i started liking lucasarts for its star wars games (hangs head in shame) i was born in 1989 so i didnt really get to play any Monkey Island until CMI and i just bought Full Throttle and Grim Fandango I also bought the lucasarts archive edition of CMI for MI and MI2 and now most of the best star wars games arent being made from lucasarts (Jedi Outcast anyone) (hangs head in shame and shakes head)

The future of adventure gaming rests with the amateur designers.

The big problem there is, many people don't know sweet FA about programming and writing games. I could write out a fantastic adventure game on paper (I did once, as well, about a time travelling private eye) but I would never be able to make it work on the PC.

Posted by lucastones: I could write out a fantastic adventure game on paper (I did once, as well, about a time travelling private eye)

Another brilliant addition to the "Time-Traveling Law Enforcer" genre. Considering the success of other such stories, this one is sure to become a classic.

Well, as Tim Schafer once said, good stories are two-a-penny but it takes so much more to be able to turn that into a good game. (I wish I could find the source.)

Krayt Tion makes a good point that LEC is just following the money. That's capitalism, after all.

And since that's probably the truth, I no longer like LEC.

I prefer the days of gaming when the makers made games because they wanted to play them. Perhaps in the future, much like movies, there will be something of an 'indie' genre of games.

it's a bit naive to say you don't like LEC because its trying to make money. All game companies want their games sold because that's the way to make the money. So LucasArts has the StarWars franchise and uses it to make lots of money. You can't really blame them for that.

I agree. LucasArts is a business, and their ultimate goal has always been to make money. Of course, this doesn't in any way excuse the wave of sub-standard Star Wars games that they've been pumping out in recent years. I don't think I'd mind so much if the games were actually interesting, but honestly... they aren't.

I'm hoping we'll see the next Grim sooner rather than later. I'm still hopeful that will happen.

excactly a new GF would be awesome if done right

exactly :) like i said down at this post, starwars games were fun when they were still special. with a flood of starwars games that don't have high enough quality one gets fed up with it.

I agree the first star wars games were awesom (X-wing, Tie fighter xwing alliance) but now they are pumping them out in quantity instead of quality

Remember Lucasarts Quality not Quantity

It's not naivete. I assure you, I am well versed in the ways of capitalism and greed. You can take the word "game" out of "all game companies" and you've still got truth. I understand that corporations are all about *selling*, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to accept it.
Not to mention the fact that I consider movies, music, and even video games to largely be an art form (hope that's not stretching it too much -- but I can hardly call Grim Fandango less artistic than any movie). It's called LucasArts Entertainment Company, let's not forget.
This is not supposed to be all about money.

LucasArts Entertainment Company. Too bad it's wedged in there between "Lucas Company."

You can't really argue this statement...

i know, at least i understand. on a side note, you're right about games being a high form of art imo. Maybe many will not recognize it yet but like a book or movie creates an epos, a world on its own, that's exactly what good games can do.

anyway we can now say that when a game creates such a good epos or the game is settled in a good already exisiting epos (starwars) it will probably be a nice game. what's forgotten that gameplay is also required. and with the creation of starwars games, that's definitly forgotten.

i would accept lec if they'd create the huge amount of starwars games to make money to invest in creating games for adventure fans like us. :)

:(

Was LEC, as a business, destined to merely follow where the money ultimately was (Star Wars)? Perhaps. Is it disappointing that companies like LucasArts and the computer industry as a whole act more like a business than the creative expressors we want them to be a lot of the time? You betcha.

This from a man who has had starwarsgamer@yahoo.com as his address for about 6 years. Zero is right on the account that you 'Regular LECers' have had a good game more recently then 'we' have.

DF and JK were both high water marks for the entire FPS genre when they were released. It was almost like LEC went from making non-sw games to mostly sw-games to just about all starwars games (and crappy ones at that).

Indeed, that overall progression is not something to be so happy about, especially from someone in your position. Things are looking up on the Star Wars end of things, at least. Maybe other kinds of LEC games will pick up too. The cycle will reverse! (okay maybe not).

LucasArts made Star Wars games first, in a way - George Lucas got another company to make the first star wars games, then realised he could make more money if he set up his own company. I speak with the guys in my local Electronics Boutique a lot, cos I recommended the Bounty Pack to someone and we all got talking about DOTT. These guys all seem to all love LucasArts. Personally, I love Star Wars, but the only good games I have played are the original X-Wing and TIE fighter.

That's an interesting point, and (forgive me for getting detailed here) I believe the first Star Wars game, Star Wars: Jedi Arena for the Atari 2600, was published by Parker Brothers in 1982 just after the first LucasFilm games release. Star Wars Arcade followed in 1983. I don't believe any Star Wars computer games were made before that, although I could be mistaken. Only reason I know about Jedi Arena is because I happen to have it in box somewhere. It's unclear as to whether LucasFilm asked Parker Brothers to make the first game, or Parker Brothers approached LucasFilm. I think LucasFilm Games actually published an original title before any Star Wars games even existed. How far we've come...

Star wars is just a giant money making farce.

unfortunatly it is now

I`m pinning all my hopes for adventure games on ScummVM. Perhaps one day it`ll become advanced enough to be a scumm game creator. Then the people who really know about adventure games -THE FANS can go to town (provided Lucasarts wouldnt shut such a project down).
Wishfull thinking - moi?

hmmm nice idea for an article but wouldve liked something more in-depth :) Anyway very nicely written hehe. And I agree with you. However I do like Star Wars but only with certain proportions :) And currently, I'm just fed up with it

When watching that JK2 trailer...the starwars march played up at the start...who DIDNT think.."Ohhh the horror, not again that tune!" :) Well I did, and I used to love that theme. Now it's become an annoying tune that marks a bad starwars game. Because LEC not only not creates any good originals anymore but the games they do make, the starwars ones, usually aren't all that well either! Okay so Starfighter was good and JK2 will perhaps be but there have been far too much bum-games around that made starwars games nothing special anymore. And it used to be you know, a starwars game used to be special...

*Sigh* I long for the days of Tie-Fighter and DF. Damn fine games.

Me too

Most people I talk to can't wrap their minds around the fact that LEC makes games other than Star Wars games.

Let alone the fact that they started the company making solely original titles; SW titles didn't show up until much later.

I completely agree with Sarah, I'm getting tired of Star Wars. Just take a look at LucasArts page and you'll see what I mean.
Where are the classic adventure games?

If LEC didn't make SW, no one would. That's kind of like saying... "goto idsoftware.com and look at all the Quake stuff..."

Sure LEC milks their SW license, but that's why they were created. I want to see more original titles as well... but it's been an off year since last E3. Hopefully things will change in May.

To address your comment about how LEC was only created to milk the Star Wars license, I'm not sure about that one. I've been told by some of the original employees that George started LucasArts in 1982 to explore computer entertainment... the company then split into two. Pixar and LucasFilm Games, who made titles like Ballblazer, Koronis Rift, Rescue on Fractalus, Pipe Dreams, and eventually Maniac Mansion. It was only in the early 90's that they started to do some Star Wars stuff. So I don't think that's why they were created, but maybe it's what they were destined to become.

In '82, George created LucasFilm Games. On top of the games you mentioned, Labyrinth is another great example.

Mansion, which was dropped in our laps in 1987, was still LucasFilm Games. Yes, the golden years were upon us. Monkey Island, Loom, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe... LEC was making great games before the Star Wars ones appeared, but if you look at their initial SW releases: they were probably waiting for the technology to catch up. X-Wing was the premier SW title.

Most Star Wars fans of late haven't been happy with anything for four/five years. So in the war of 'Adventure vs SW'... at least adventure lovers had Grim Fandango in 1998 ;)

I don't know if I would go ahead and assume that, but it's a valid theory. I suppose only the people directly involved in the old days could answer it for certain. So we may never know.

Back when X-Wing was released, it was commonly stated that "George Lucas / LucasArts felt that the technology is now advanced enough to bring Star Wars to our home computers", or something along those lines. One of the original goals of the computer division was to see how they could broaden your movie-going experience -- you could go to the theater, watch a movie and then go home and play it. So, while Star Wars titles might not have been the ultimate goal of Lucasfilm Games as such, they were definitely lurking behind the scenes all the time.

The funny thing is that all these 'cash-cow' StarWars games are bringing in enough money for LEC to spend some on a rare non-StarWars game.

I mean, would LEC even risk another adventure game today if it didn't sell lots of popular StarWars stuff?

Hmmm...

What's interesting is that it seems LucasArts doesn't pay its employees very well (compared to what, I don't know). I wonder how their budget works.

Where did you heard that?

It's been mentioned in a few articles about LucasArts and a few ex-employees have verified it.

Even the official company line is something like "LucasArts is notorious for not paying the biggest salaries in the industry". And people still apply, just because it's LucasArts. (And based on what we've heard, a helluva place to be working at.) :)