Lucas Arts - Internal Development to End?

Shack News reports that a reliable source has informed them that Lucas Arts is set to lay off 100 more employees as they close shop on internal development.

Following word of routine terminations at developer LucasArts, a reliable source has informed Shacknews that the company plans to cease internal development and fire roughly 100 more employees after the completion of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
LucasArts is known to have at least one other title, an Indiana Jones game, in development. Shacknews was told that, following the team's termination, all other partially-completed internal projects will be outsourced, a move that fits with earlier rumblings.

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More information.

Way to motivate your employees. I wonder if the guys working on finishing The Force Unleashed have any drive left after this news, knowing that they'll be out of a job when it's done, anyway.

I think those people usually can find a job relatively quick thanks to their experience...
Maybe not everyone, but certainly a good part of them.

"Some that believe that more money can be made by licensing the SW and Indiana Jones IP to third party developers," an anonymous source, believed to be an ex-employee,

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So this is another case reflecting the effect of continual increase of cost developing AAA title games?

Personally, i don't think so.

To me, this sounds like mere and sheer cut of costs.

"Well, the shareholders are demanding, you know !"

By shareholders I would think George himself. He ran Industrial Light and Magic at a loss until 10 years ago.

His divorce cost him $200 million and he suddenly found himself hurting for cash. All his companies suddenly found themselves under scrutiny and he went and made three more movies.

The writing has been on the wall for these devs for a long time, particularly when you see things like KotOR doing so well and it was done third party. This cuts a lot of overhead and we could see a number of of good games or good tries with the IP's after this.

It seems in our days managers are the bane of society. It seems like stock speculation has become a threat to capitalism. Where does a society go when hard work and investment into work no longer pay off, but stock speculations on the back of people who worked good and hard all those years. For us gamers it means another host of experienced programmers and a team that brought some good games is spread into the four winds. Maybe those bean counters outsource themselves, that would save us much more. Ya know, good programmers dont need CEOs and smartass managers to do their jobs, so its those stockholders and managers who are the only parasites in our society, not the hard worken men and women fired now.

So - does this mean that the game Bioware are making for LucasArts is an Indiana Jones title ?

Personally, I tend to agree to elikal now, but not so much in this harsgh tone.

But in principle, yes, because I see the same problems.

I highly suspect, for example, that the currently exploding oil prices are nothing but a bubble made up by speculators.