lucaswhat?

[jokemaster]

The thing with LucasArts and All the Great Games they Used to Make is that, yes, partially, you have to blame those guys in charge for not making adventure games (Yes, adventure games. That's what I assume when you guys say Great Games) but for a good reason. They don't sell. And that's the only thing those guys care about: money.

All right, so it's not a good reason for you, but hey, we live in capitalism, who listens to you?

Second, I think all the Good Adventure Makers who used to work at Lucasarts have quit (And many got fired ). Tim Schafer and Ron gilbert, neither works there, but they're both arguably the best adventure creators ever.

I think that's why Lucasarts aren't making Great Adventure Games anymore. Beacuse they're literally not what they used to be.

I agree, they're not making them because they don't make money, but here's the problem: How will they make money if álmost nobody's making 'them, and when they are they're rarely a nice well-heard of series, like sam and max, or monkey island or maniac mansion, or full throttle.

And the other think i'm complaining about is that they're not putting as much effort into even the Star Wars games, at least not as much as they used to with X-WING or Dark Forces, or any of those old, also great, games. All I'm asking for is something great DEVELOPED by LEC, don't get me wrong I'll probably buy KOTOR 2, same with Republic commando adn mercenaries, what I'm saying is that I miss the old days when LEC developed awesome titles, I'm not saying LEC is evil, or something like that, eventhe old games were made for money, basically, same with classic movies, they're good, but they were made for money, but I'm asking is that they put more effort into it. Or I may just want the old days wtih XWing and DOTT and Sam and Max to come back.

And BG&E rules....if only I could find a copy of TLJ in one of my local games stores. BTW, does it work all right on XP?

[Farbror]

Yes, well, true, interesting. Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say that they actually released Sam and Max 2. Would it have sold good? "It all depends on the game!" You'll all say. Well, yes, true again.

What if it was as good as Escape from Monkey Island ( Eh, okay I guess, but they've done better in the past)?

What if it was as good as the original ( Hooray! Adventure games live again!)?

What if it was as good as, well, take any unpleasant adventure coming out the last two years?

When would it have sold the most?

Would it have mattered?

Beacuse, let's face it, only adventure-fans like us would have bought it, and most of us would probably have bought it anyway if even if it was semi-good, beacuse there aren't enough good adventure games out there.

Even if the game was super good, I mean like Grim Fandango-style here, it wouldn't have mattered. Then it would only have won GameOfTheYear over at Gamespot, and two more people might have bought it. Look at Grim Fandango.

[jokemaster]

Yes, well, true, interesting. Let's do a thought experiment. Let's say that they actually released Sam and Max 2. Would it have sold good? "It all depends on the game!" You'll all say. Well, yes, true again.

What if it was as good as Escape from Monkey Island ( Eh, okay I guess, but they've done better in the past)?

What if it was as good as the original ( Hooray! Adventure games live again!)?

What if it was as good as, well, take any unpleasant adventure coming out the last two years?

When would it have sold the most?

Would it have mattered?

Beacuse, let's face it, only adventure-fans like us would have bought it, and most of us would probably have bought it anyway if even if it was semi-good, beacuse there aren't enough good adventure games out there.

Even if the game was super good, I mean like Grim Fandango-style here, it wouldn't have mattered. Then it would only have won GameOfTheYear over at Gamespot, and two more people might have bought it. Look at Grim Fandango.

True, it's risky, but IMO it's worth the risk. Plus I'm getting some of my friends interested in it after letting them borrow my copy of Sam and Max

And yeah, it is very risky from a business point of view, but I'm just wishing from a consumer's point of view, a minority consumer you might say, but a consumer nonetheless. Anyway, same point, I'm just being wishy washy around here.

Anyway, JOKEMASTER AWAY!

[peb]

Come on guys, it's not so bad.

He's squeezing the life out of her! Just like LucasArts squeezed the life out of adventures!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Sounds just like Los Angeles.

[Farbror]

True, it's risky, but IMO it's worth the risk. Plus I'm getting some of my friends interested in it after letting them borrow my copy of Sam and Max

And yeah, it is very risky from a business point of view, but I'm just wishing from a consumer's point of view, a minority consumer you might say, but a consumer nonetheless. Anyway, same point, I'm just being wishy washy around here.

Anyway, JOKEMASTER AWAY!

Of course, as an adventure gamer I surely want to see the sequel to one of the best adventures ever. However, as an, uh, money-guy (?), I can understand why nobody cares about us.

Really sad.

I like being the adventure gamer more than a money guy.

[vimes]

... and thats what every1 forgets ... sure LEC could make some adventure games, but when they dont sell, screw thinking of the executives, but think about what would happen to the "working man". if LEC had released S&M2, there would be even more firings than what has already happend.

Are we economicaly comparing here LucasArts and Team17 ?

Okay, LucasArts makes tons, and I mean tons, of cash with Starwars game thanks to three developers of which one has only one arm.

And, come on, how much do you think an adventure game might cost compared to any other popular genre? How much do you think Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds or Force Commander has cost to this company ?

It's not as if we were talking about a studio which only makes games... not distributing them.

We must be honest with ourself. LucasArst used to be a ground breaking company; now it has become what every selling company is supposed to be : an investor that wishes, hopes and makes eveything so that its safe investments will generate large amounts of money. And, honestly, we can blame them but in the end, video game aren't yet considered as an art , so suicide projects can't seriously be funded.

There is ni Humanism here.

EDIt : I'd fucking prefer this situation to be different.

[Udvarnoky]

Even if the game was super good, I mean like Grim Fandango-style here, it wouldn't have mattered. Then it would only have won GameOfTheYear over at Gamespot, and two more people might have bought it. Look at Grim Fandango.

Grim had good long-term sales....

Killing Sam & Max doesn't exactly make sense from a financial perspective, either. It's not as though the game was in pre-production stages or early development. The game was also accomplishing something very rare: gaining support from the press. I'm not pretending like I've run a major company before, and maybe Sam & Max 2 did indeed have the potential to lose more money if it sold poorly (as a opposed to, say, cancelling the game so that the on-hand marketing cash could be used to support Star Wars), even though it was far into development and had likely already eaten a lot of money. But you'd think there's a line that a game can cross before it should certainly be released. You'd think that the game had crossed that line already.

And it's not as though LucasArts attempted to defend itself, either. As we all know, all we were treated to was that incredibly short press release, and then the removal of all things related to the game. LucasArts never issued an announcement later explaining a complex, underlying financial situation. The magazine previews and advertisements for the game that sprang up in April as well as information about the game being revealed mere weeks before March 3 tells us that the game must have been on safe ground just a little while before its demise. Personally, I think the reason we've never heard a real explanation for the game is because its cancellation really was as abrupt, unforseen, and stupid as many of us have assumed. We have ample reason to believe that even LucasArts employees didn't sense the game's impending doom (*cough* programmer recruitment adertisement *cough*).

OK, so your argument is that adventure games don't sell well enough to merit a release, despite the inevitable fortune that development has already consumed. But LucasArts' going out of its way to can this game makes me believe that there was something else going on. I suppose we'll never know what it was, but I'll always hold the Sam & Max 2 was the last (and very good) chance for LucasArts to redeem itself and the adventure genre, and they destroyed it. Sam & Max may have had a damned good chance to actually sell. I guess it's easy to say that it would it would have bombed. I don't know, but I think SNM really should have been the game to decide whether the genre would make a comeback. Now we're going to have to wait a long time for that to happen.

It's pitiful to think that all this time has passed, and I'm still no less frustrated or eager to vent about the game.

[jokemaster]

Ud, I agree with you, I don't think we'd be this PO'd if they'd given a good reason.

[Ryam BaCo]

hello, mr uncoordinated point gun!

don't be shy, shoot!

• adventures sell quite well in germany/austria. even crappy monkey 4 sold well.
  
• i admit: i will buy kotor 2 because of kotor 1 and my blind trust into the quality of the game, because it's made by some bioware guyssss
  
• lucasarts can't be a profit oriented company if they waste their ressources into the development of s&m2 and cancel it shortly before it should be released
  
• because of point #3 lucasarts is just a dumb company.
  

hugh, mr weisenheimer (what a dumb word - english is ) spoke.

[Farbror]

Just so I don't confuse anyone, I'm not really defending anyone, I'm just explaining Lucasarts point of view.

Okay, LucasArts makes tons, and I mean tons, of cash with Starwars game thanks to three developers of which one has only one arm.

They do?

I don't know any numbers and what I'm really doing now is just maing stuff up, but this company recently fired basicy everyone who didn't work at star wars stuff. Major Star Wars stuff. It's just a wild guess, but I think this company has been in financially better shapes.

Grim had good long-term sales....

True, but that's apparantly not how you count if a games sells good or not in this business. Why? That's freaking dumb!

(Just to clarify, it's freaking dumb not to count long term sales. It's the money guys who are dumb and short sighted.)

I think you're right in that the major reason we're really angry at LucasArts is that they've reated us so badly. Let's make a comparison beetwen Full Throttle 2 and Sam and Max 2.

When we first heard about FT 2, we were somewhat skepctical. I mean, Oh no, they're adding FIGHTING and MORE violence than BEFORE. Let's be honest, we more or less knew that they were going to screw it up.

And they cancelled it. Who was angry? Yeah, of course, but I mean "cancellingsamandmax2"-angry? No, beacuse we had this nagging feeling that this wasn't going to be good.

But perhaps even more important, the official reason that the game was canceled was "It wasn't really that good." At least that's what I remember, and I'm wrong 56 % of the time. But you get my point.

Now, Sam and Max 2. Who wasn't looking forward to it? Ah, I thought so, noone. And what happens? They cancel it, but more importantly, why do they cancel it? "Eh, we don't think it will make enough money. Sorry guys."

Man, of course we were angry! And they refused to release any more information, and if we told them how angry we was, all they said was "Your voice is being heard. The exit is to the right, have a pleasant evening."

What if they had said something like with FT2? "You know guys, we know how much you like adventuregames and all, but we don't think you'll appreciate this, you know. I mean, it's nothing like the original, and, well, frankly, we're not really good at this stuff anymore. I think the best would be if we just gave it all up."

We would still be mad, we would be furious, but we wouldn't have been as furious as now, beacuse then we would have a semi-valid reason for them to cancel it. Lucasarts isn't really good at PR.

Of course, I have no idea if the game was really "nothing like the original" and all that, but if they said so, at least I would have been a little happier.

[Marek]

Erm yeah, LucasArts makes a ton of money with Star Wars games like KOTOR and Galaxies, but they also lost a ton of money on quite a number of non-Star Wars games of the recent past. I don't remember the exact number, but the number of copies sold for RTX Red Rock is truly the most embarassing thing ever. It was something like 3.

Farbror: I don't think you're quite on the money there. The fact that they expanded on the action with FT2 was a cause for some controversy, but I think the lukewarm reception had a lot to do with the game's art direction and lackluster concept. They didn't seem to get what made the first one great. It seemed like some low-budget kids game about bikers instead of the sequel to the insanely cinematic and gritty original. Just my 2 cents.

I also disagree that no one was excited about S&M2. Those people who knew about the game in fact were. Almost everyone who saw the trailer was immediately sold. However, LucasArts didn't really promote S&M2 much beyond that E3 trailer (much to our dismay actually). They kept saying it was too early, but in reality I don't think a real PR/marketing plan for S&M2 was being rolled out at any point during the project's lifetime. I think they were still working it out before it got cancelled.

One trailer + 4 screenshots isn't exactly a hype machine, though S&M2 was still infinitely better received than FT2. Just have a look at Mojo's archived news comments.

[Farbror]

Farbror: I don't think you're quite on the money there. The fact that they expanded on the action with FT2 was a cause for some controversy, but I think the lukewarm reception had a lot to do with the game's art direction and lackluster concept. They didn't seem to get what made the first one great. It seemed like some low-budget kids game about bikers instead of the sequel to the insanely cinematic and gritty original. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah, well, we weren't really "OMG ITS MONKEU5 OMG OMG LOLZ", that's really what I meant.

I also disagree that no one was excited about S&M2.

Where did I say that? Did I say that? Man, I'd better shoot myself if I really said that, beacuse that's nothing but a pure freaking lie.

(Just for clarification, the lie is that noone was excited about S&M2, not that I said it, which may still be a lie but I'm not sure. I could scroll down here and check what I've written, but man, I mean, endure that!)

[Chris]

Come on guys, it's not so bad.

[Kolzig]

Omg, the best lucas related pictures ever.

[Chris]

I never noticed how much funnier that second picture is when placed directly after the first.

EDIT: referring to my pics, that is, not Marek's.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Chris, is that you kneeling in the pic?

[Chris]

Chris, is that you kneeling in the pic?

Yep. And my hat in the following one.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Right. Hey, you're an attractive fellow.* And those damn stormtroopers make me wanna go back and play some Jedi Knight II.

*Oh, please! Just because I'm qu33r doesn't mean I can't give a perfectly platonic compliment to a guy.

[Moosferatu]

Hey, the Stormtrooper is even giving thumbs up just like your avatar.

Let's bring this guy back into the fun.

[jokemaster]

Hey, the Stormtrooper is even giving thumbs up just like your avatar.

Let's bring this guy back into the fun.

........what the fuck happened to pac-man?

[Moosferatu]

........what the fuck happened to pac-man?

Dude, that's Alien Hominid.

[vimes]

Why, WHY, don't events like Comic con, E3 or even ECTS exist in France?

Why god, why don't you allow me to hug these gorgeous Stormtroopers?!

[jokemaster]

Thank god. geez, reminded me of the Atari Pac-man cover

Why god, why don't you allow me to hug these gorgeous Stormtroopers?!

[Chris]

Hey, the Stormtrooper is even giving thumbs up just like your avatar.

Yeah, and I didn't even prompt him. I was pretty pleased.