Comments: 1 (Go to Comments)
Categories: Business, Commentary
Tags: fate of atlantis, indiana jones, lucasarts, sam and max, staff of kings
Image courtesy of MobyGames.comI’ve been following @lucasartsgames on Twitter since Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was released last year and I’ve noticed an interesting trend.
Most game companies use Twitter to hype new releases or to keep a conversation going about recently released games.
LucasArts has been using Twitter to ask trivia questions like, “When Zak gets his first assignment – what must he seek?,” “You know what’s great? Making vichyssois. What ingredient does Guybrush add to his?,” and “In Fate of Atlantis, how do you get around Biff the Doorman?”
Classic gamers will recognize that these trivia questions stretch back to the early days of LucasArts — back when they were known for their adventure games and not their exploitation of the Star Wars Universe.
To say that LucasArts has turned their backs on their adventure roots is an understatement. They basically lost interest in making adventure games — even going so far as to shrug off the rights to Sam and Max (and I’m glad Telltale picked them up). This is notable because at one point every LucasArts game was honor-bound to have a Max (a hyperkinetic rabbity thing) cameo or easter egg appearance.
So isn’t it weird that one of LucasArts’ public faces is referencing games their website barely acknowledge?
Maybe not — just yesterday LucasArts revealed that their upcoming Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings game would contain the classic Indiana Jones game Fate of Atlantis as an unlockable. As expected, fan reaction has been huge and there’s a good chance that many of Staff of Kings’ sales will be token payments for a port of the classic game.
My thought is that this is part of something bigger. Call it wishful thinking, but I can see LucasArts opening the back catalog and releasing classic games onto the Wii and DS (at the very least). They could easily do this even with their reduced development staff and they’d be guaranteed sales.
Like I said, this is an educated guess, but it seems like something must be driving @lucasartsgames to flood twitter with questions about Loom, Monkey Island, and The Dig.
racing games:
Oh, LucasArts