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[Richard Kain]

Disney purchases LucasFilm

It was recently announced that George Lucas is cashing out. After creating and running the various companies under the LucasFilm umbrella, he has decided to sell his various properties. This looks like it is a full sale, too. LucasFilm, LucasArts, and Industrial Light and Magic are all included, as well as all of the IP and merchandising rights for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc... The overall asking price is around $4 billion in cash and stock.

This is a pretty sweeping acquisition, and could have a lot of consequences for the film industry. I was most surprised by the news that ILM was part of the purchase. ILM is known for producing special effects for multiple studios. I would have thought that ILM would be spun off as a separate company, with all the potential work they could pick up. It will be interesting to see how this might effect ILM's client list going forward.

It will also be interesting to see what this could mean for LucasArts, a division of LucasFilm once well known for producing high-quality games. Their output over the past console generation has been increasingly poor. Hopefully Disney will be able to breathe new life into some of the studio's neglected franchises.

[Christian Knudsen]

I read somewhere that LucasArts won't be focusing on console AAA development anymore, instead shifting to mobile and social gaming. But I'll be damned if I can find the article now...

[Uykered]

I'm just happy Star Wars 7-9 is coming, going to look so cool with today's technology.

[moi]

A few months ago I was thinking about the evolution of star wars ,and wanted to make a sarcastic post somewhere about how in the future it would be mostly CGI cartoony crap (like the cartoon series) and later on it would become even dumber and would end up as nothing but a disney attraction.
But now reality makes my joke post stale

[Muz]

Normally wary of megacorps buying out artists, but Disney puts significant focus on game/toy production, so this is a good move on their side. Disney somehow found the perfect formula for producing pop stars out of nothing; hope they do the same with games. I'd rather see Disney-style games flooding the market than EA or Zynga types.

ILM surprised me too... they're a benchmark company for anyone in that field and even a lot of companies outside the field.

[Richard Kain]

For the Star Wars franchise in general, this could actually be a good move. George hasn't exactly been making good decisions regarding Star Wars lately, it might actually be able to flourish under Disney.

But I am a bit worried for LucasArts. I can somewhat understand their desire to move away from large-scale console development. It is a very risky enterprise. At the same time, I think there is plenty of potential in the mobile and social game space for the IPs that LucasArts owns. I would love to see some more point-and-click adventure games on mobile devices. (a bit of wishful thinking, but its within the realm of possibility) It also seems like Disney would be open to licensing LucasArts existing properties, so we could still see some of their big game franchises re-visited by other game studios.