(via Kotaka)
Lucas Arts is working on a Darth Vader game. So the article is really about the turnaround Lucas Arts has seen from the bleh game production of a few years ago to becoming a top-10 publisher (with a goal of being a top-5):
“We can do this ourselves,” Mr. Ward recalled Mr. Lucas telling him. “We will put our resources behind this.”
LucasArts is not No. 5 yet. But last year it ranked No. 8 in sales, up from No. 13 a year earlier, according to the NPD Group. And, Mr. Ward, 46, is being credited with a turnaround. While No. 8 may seem low in an industry obsessed with No. 1, LucasArts got there selling a fraction of the games its competitors did.
. . .
“The ‘Star Wars’ brand is a massive advantage, but they are going to have to market new innovation,” said John Riccitiello, a partner at the video game investor Elevation Partners, who has known Mr. Ward for several years. “It’s early. It may take another five years for their story to develop, but it is going to be interesting.”
But down here at near the end of the article, we see this tidbit that will surely be off interest to a lot of Star Wars fans.
Their excitement was palpable on a recent afternoon, when Mr. Ward, Mr. Hirschmann and Haden Blackman, the project leader of a forthcoming “Star Wars” game, reviewed all of the company’s recent projects. Mr. Blackman outlined a new storyline that delved deeper into Darth Vader’s history.
Mr. Hirschmann later demonstrated a test game, shouting and jumping each time a storm trooper tumbled onscreen, the character barely catching his fingers on the pixel ledge. And he gleefully explained how researchers had tracked down images of San Francisco buildings from 1915 for the future Indiana Jones game.
[tags]Lucas Arts, Darth Vader[/tags]