LucasArts

LucasArts, formerly LucasArts Entertainment Company and, before that, Lucasfilm Games, is a video game developer and publisher and part of the Lucas finance.

During their earliest years, they became famous mostly for their legendary adventure games, most notable of which is the Monkey Island series.

LucasArts broke into the Star Wars realm in 1993 with Star Wars: X-wing. After this success, the company continued producing games based on the Star Wars universe.

Their games spread throughout the past decade to encompass almost every game genre. These include role-playing games (RPG), such as the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic franchise, real-time strategy games (RTS), such as Star Wars: Empire at War and its expansion pack, first- and third-person shooters (FPS), such as the Jedi Knight series, and a continued run of flight simulators, both the X-wing series as well as the Rogue Squadron series.

LucasArts has kept interests in non-Star Wars titles as well. It released sequels to its critically acclaimed Monkey Island series, and also created other franchises to continue with.

Controversy
Recently, LucasArts has become known for rushing games (like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and the Star Wars: Battlefront games), and, according to many fans, ruining or degrading the overall experience. This has led some fans to consider boycotting LA games.

They have also been criticized for focusing far too much on Star Wars and Indiana Jones games, when the company first began as LucasFilm Games, they focused solely on original properties, most notably in the Adventure genre. In fact, LucasArts was originally one of the most iconic companies when it came to adventure games for their great Graphic Adventure games such as Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, Zak McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Sam and Max Hit the Road, The Secret of Monkey Island along with its sequels, and Full Throttle. Furthermore, LucasArts appears to have killed off the genre they innovated with the cancellation of newer games in the Sam and Max and Full Throttle series despite fan protest against such.

Recently, LucasArts re-released an assortment of games as downloads on Steam, Valve's game distribution service. While six of the ten games in the first wave were related to Star Wars or Indiana Jones, classic adventure games such as The Dig and Loom were also included. More are expected to follow.

Key people

 * Chairman: George Lucas
 * President; VP Marketing and Distribution, Lucasfilm: Jim Ward
 * VP, Product Development: Peter Hirschmann

Notes and references
LucasArts Entertainment Company LucasArts