UPDATE! Lucas Arts Is No More.

Lucasfilm has decided it leave the videogame-making business.
LucasArts has laid off all its game development and support staff, with a small team remaining to handle licensed products like the Lego “Star Wars” franchise.
What will happen with Star Wars 1313 and First Assault? Read after the jump.


UPDATE: Remembering Lucas Arts!





The official statement by Lucas Arts:

 “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. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”

LucasArts opened its doors in 1982, and while it’s produced games like “Manic Mansion,” “The Secret of Monkey Island” and several based on the “Indiana Jones” franchise, it’s succeeded more with its “Star Wars” titles including “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic,” “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed” and “Star Wars: The Old Republic,” a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was the most expensive game produced when it launched in 2011, with a $150 million pricetag, but has struggled to generate a large fanbase.

 With the layoffs, LucasArts is no longer working on “Star Wars 1313,” but still hopes to finish the game with another developer. “Star Wars: First Assault” has also been canceled.

The layoffs are taking place as Disney is focusing its interactive business on social media and mobile games. After paying $4.06 billion for Lucasfilm last year, it was only a matter of time before the home of “Star Wars” also took that approach. Games group’s next high-profile release is “Disney Infinity,” which bows August and is the Mouse House’s answer to Activision’s “Skylanders,” incorporating action figures that interact with a videogame.
Disney also has been quick to work with Lucasfilm’s other divisions, hiring J.J. Abrams to direct a seventh “Star Wars,” dated for 2015, and pulling the plug on its “Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” ending its run on Cartoon Network, so that Lucas’ animation team can start producing new shows for Disney XD.

Source: variety.com

Also according to Kotaku:  

 Publicly, Disney is saying their current games could be licensed out to a different publisher or developer, but according to our source, that's unlikely. Our source says Lucas has pursued the option for "one or both games," but nothing happened. "With the teams now basically being dispersed I think both games are effectively dead forever," our source said.

A second source also told Kotaku this afternoon that the chances of Lucas licensing out 1313 are very slim. The odds are "effectively zero," the source said. 

If you're not familiar with the two new games that were supposed to be released later by Lucas Arts, take a look: