Correct_Carlo
Arcane
There's an interesting interview with 5 of the earliest developers at Lucasarts at US gamer. Way too long to copy pasta here, but some of the best bits (much of which isn't new):
-Lucasarts was originally created as a tax shelter. George Lucas had no interest in games and just needed another company to funnel his massive profits from Star Wars into. Plus, they often had to look for external investors/funding as Lucas did not fund most of their games.
-While they promoted Lucas' involvement at the time, he had zero creative involvement other than his name (although SPielberg did do some "initial brainstorming" on "The Dig")
-They were initially forbidden from doing Star Wars games, and "Rescue on Fractalas" was conceived of as a "Star Wars" game, only without the licence. They ultimately acknowledge that the studio's inability to use Star Wars forced them to be more creative in other areas.
-They almost did another fractal game/iphone sequel to Koronis Rift in the era of the Monkey Island remakes, but it was scrapped when the president was replaced
-They think Disney bought Lucasfilm/arts soley for star wars and are unaware of most of Lucasart's back catalog, so they don't think old Lucas Arts games will be rereleased any time soon
There's a bunch of other interesting stuff about the making of Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and (especially) Habitat (which you really don't hear much about at all):
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/i-actually-was-hunting-ewoks-lucasfilm-games-the-early-years
-Lucasarts was originally created as a tax shelter. George Lucas had no interest in games and just needed another company to funnel his massive profits from Star Wars into. Plus, they often had to look for external investors/funding as Lucas did not fund most of their games.
-While they promoted Lucas' involvement at the time, he had zero creative involvement other than his name (although SPielberg did do some "initial brainstorming" on "The Dig")
-They were initially forbidden from doing Star Wars games, and "Rescue on Fractalas" was conceived of as a "Star Wars" game, only without the licence. They ultimately acknowledge that the studio's inability to use Star Wars forced them to be more creative in other areas.
-They almost did another fractal game/iphone sequel to Koronis Rift in the era of the Monkey Island remakes, but it was scrapped when the president was replaced
-They think Disney bought Lucasfilm/arts soley for star wars and are unaware of most of Lucasart's back catalog, so they don't think old Lucas Arts games will be rereleased any time soon
There's a bunch of other interesting stuff about the making of Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and (especially) Habitat (which you really don't hear much about at all):
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/i-actually-was-hunting-ewoks-lucasfilm-games-the-early-years
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