LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC | |
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Founded | 1982-05-?? |
Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
Other Names | Lucasfilm Games |
The LucasArts Entertainment Company was once a large video game developer and publisher, but after The Walt Disney Company acquired it in 2012, Disney cancelled all the projects, fired all but an handful of the staff, and turned it into a company whose sole purpose is to sell licenses of former LucasArts franchises like Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
LucasArts was founded as Lucasfilm Games in May of 1982 by George Lucas. Initially they designed, developed, and published all their own games. The company changed its name to LucasArts Entertainment Company in 1991. By the early 2000s, LucasArts existed mostly as a publishing house, personally developing only a few games in the next couple years, and instead hiring outside companies to write games for them to sell. In 2012, Disney purchased LucasArts from George Lucas and originally claimed the company would continue as business as usual, but on April 3, 2013, Disney shut down the company and replaced it with a skeleton crew to handle selling licenses to other video game companies.
Contents
Games
Music Development
NES
The company outsourced their sound to various other companies, including Beam Software, Realtime Associates, and Sculptured Software.
Genesis/Mega Drive
On Zombies Ate my Neighbors, the company outsourced their sound to Realtime Associates.
SNES
Again, the company outsourced their sound to Realtime Associates and Sculptured Software.
Big Sky Trooper uses Bitmasters's SLICK/Audio by David O'Riva.
Amiga
Steve Hales designed the sound driver used for the company's Amiga releases.
Commodore 64
At least two main sound drivers are known to have been used for their Commodore 64 games; the first was designed by Peter Langston and Charlie Kellner, and the second by Randy Farmer with additional design by Chris Grigg. Grigg's and Farmer's driver was adapted by Aric Wilmunder for use in the SCUMM engine.
DOS
For the company's early DOS titles (up to and including Loom (DOS)), their sound production duties were outsourced to Realtime Associates, who most likely used David Warhol's sound software.
LucasArts brought their sound development in-house starting with The Secret of Monkey Island (DOS), for which Aric Wilmunder designed a rudimentary sound driver. Composer Michael Land found this too restrictive, however, and so he and Peter McConnell designed the iMUSE system, which entered use beginning with Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (DOS).
N64
Programmers of LucasArts developed variation of iMuse for Nintendo 64. According to the data of Shadows of the Empire, programmers converted sound effects and original recordings of orchestral sessions as RAW data.
They also collaborated with Factor 5 in the development of voice compression technology, which called M.O.R.T.
Audio Personnel
- Anna Karney
- Aric Wilmunder
- Brian Hales
- Chad Seiter
- Charlie Kellner
- Chris Grigg
- Chris Tilton
- Clint Bajakian
- Daniel Filner
- David Lawrence
- David Levison
- David Martin
- Douglas Crockford
- Ellen Meijers
- Jared Emerson-Johnson
- Jesse Harlin
- John Williams - Not an official employee, but much of his music was used in their games.
- Julian Kwasneski
- Larry The O
- Mark Griskey
- Matthew Kane
- Michael Giacchino
- Michael Land
- Peter Langston
- Peter McConnell
- Randy Farmer
- Steve Hales
- Wilbert Roget II
These people were sub-contracted via Bay Area Sound:
These people were sub-contracted via Beam Software:
These people were sub-contracted via Realtime Associates:
- David Govett
- David Hayes
- David Warhol
- Eric Hammond
- Eric Swanson
- Gary Hammond
- George Sanger
- Greg Turner
- Joe McDermott
These people were sub-contracted via Sculptured Software:
Logo History
Links
- mobygames.com/company/lucasarts - MobyGames.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LucasArts - Wikipedia.