present type limited liability company subsidiary industry interactive entertainment founded may 1 1982 ; 34 years ago 1982 05 01 as lucasfilm games founder george lucas headquarters letterman digital arts center san francisco california u.s. area served worldwide key people ada duan vp digital business & franchise management lucasfilm products list of lucasarts games number of employees fewer than 10 1 parent lucasfilm the walt disney company website lucasfilm.com games lucasarts entertainment company llc 2 is an american video game publisher 3 and licensor . 4 until 2013 it was also a video game developer . lucasarts is best known for its graphic adventure games as well as games based on the star wars and indiana jones franchises . its headquarters are located in san francisco california . it was founded in may 1982 by george lucas as lucasfilm games the video game development group of his film company lucasfilm . lucas initially served as the company s chairman . during a 1990 reorganization of lucas companies the lucasfilm games division was renamed lucasarts . lucasarts was acquired by the walt disney company through the acquisition of its parent company lucasfilm in 2012 . on april 3 2013 disney halted all internal development at lucasarts and laid off most of its staff . however lucasarts remained open so that it could retain its function as a licensor . 5 6 7 development of games based on the star wars license will be performed by electronic arts through an exclusive license for the core gaming market . disney interactive studios retained the ability to develop and lucasarts retained the ability to license the franchise for the casual gaming market . 8 9 development of video games based upon other lucasfilm properties will now be assumed by disney interactive studios or licensed to third parties . 10 contents 1 history 1.1 the first decade 1.2 imuse 1.3 adventure games 1.4 simulation games 1.5 first star wars games 1.6 first person shooters 1.7 in the new millennium 1.8 restructuring under jim ward 1.9 last years as part of an independent lucasfilm 1.10 acquisition by disney and halting internal development 1.11 after the acquisition 1.12 impact on the san francisco game development industry 2 logo 3 see also 4 notes 5 references 6 external links history edit the company was founded in may 1982 as the video game development group of lucasfilm limited the film production company of george lucas . lucas wanted his company to branch out into other areas of entertainment so he created the lucasfilm games group as part of the lucasfilm computer division . the first decade edit the lucasfilm games group originally cooperated with atari which helped fund the video game group s founding 11 to produce video games . the first results of this collaboration were unique action games like ballblazer in 1984 and rescue on fractalus . 12 beta versions of both games were leaked to pirate bulletin boards exactly one week after atari had received unprotected copies for a marketing review and were in wide circulation months before the original release date . in 1984 they were released for the atari 5200 under the lucasfilm games label . versions for home computers were not released until 1985 by publisher epyx . lucasfilm s next two games were koronis rift and the eidolon . their first games were only developed by lucasfilm and a publisher would distribute the games . atari published their games for atari systems activision and epyx would do their computer publishing . maniac mansion was the first game to be published and developed by lucasfilm games . 13 the early charter of lucasfilm games was to make experimental innovative and technologically advanced video games . 14 habitat an early online role playing game was one such title . it was only released as a beta test in 1986 by quantum link an online service for the commodore 64 . quantum link could not provide the bandwidth at the time to support the game so the full habitat was never released outside of the beta test . however lucasfilm games recouped the cost of development by releasing a sized down version called club caribe in 1988 . lucasfilm later licensed the software to fujitsu who released it in japan as fujitsu habitat in 1990 . fujitsu later licensed habitat for worldwide distribution and released an updated version called worldsaway in 1995 . 15 the latest iteration of habitat is still called worldsaway which can be found over at metroworlds . 16 17 in 1990 in a reorganization of the lucas companies the games division of lucasfilm became part of the newly created lucasarts entertainment company together with industrial light & magic and skywalker sound . later ilm and skywalker sound were consolidated in lucas digital ltd. and lucasarts became the official name of the former games division . in the same year lucasarts started to publish the adventurer their own gaming magazine where one could read about their upcoming games and interviews with the developers . the final issue was published in 1996 . imuse edit main article imuse imuse interactive music streaming engine is an interactive music system used in a number of lucasarts video games . it synchronizes music with the visual action in the game and transitions from one musical theme to another . imuse was developed in the early 1990s by composers michael land and peter mcconnell while working at lucasarts . 18 the imuse system is patented by lucasarts 19 and was added to the scumm game engine in 1991 . the first game to use imuse was indiana jones and the fate of atlantis 20 and it has been used in all lucasarts adventure games since . it has also been used for some non adventure lucasarts titles including star wars x wing dos version star wars tie fighter dos version and star wars dark forces . adventure games edit main article lucasarts adventure games the first adventure game developed by lucasfilm games was labyrinth in 1986 based on the lucasfilm movie of the same name . the 1987 title maniac mansion introduced scumm the scripting language behind most of the company s later adventure offerings . the adventures released in the following years such as zak mckracken and the alien mindbenders in 1988 indiana jones and the last crusade the graphic adventure in 1989 and the 1990 titles loom and the critically acclaimed the secret of monkey island helped lucasfilm games build a reputation as one of the leading developers in the genre . the original five adventure games created with scumm were released in a compilation titled lucasarts classic adventures in 1992 . 21 lucasarts was often referred to as one of the two big names in the field competing with sierra on line as a developer of high quality adventures . the first half of the 1990s was the heyday for the company s adventure fame with classic titles such as monkey island 2 lechuck s revenge in 1991 indiana jones and the fate of atlantis in 1992 maniac mansion day of the tentacle and sam & max hit the road in 1993 and the 1995 titles full throttle and the dig . in the latter half of the decade the popularity of adventure games faded and the costs associated with game development increased as high resolution art and cd quality audio became standard fare . the pc market wanted titles that would show off expensive new graphics cards to best effect a change replicated in the home console market as the 3d capabilities of the playstation sega saturn and nintendo 64 dictated the nature of the majority of games produced for those platforms . the adventure genre failed to find popularity with the masses of new gamers . despite their declining popularity lucasarts still continued to release adventure titles . in 1997 the curse of monkey island the last lucasarts adventure game to retain traditional two dimensional graphics and point and click interface was released . this was followed by grim fandango in 1998 lucasarts first attempt to convert a 2d adventure to a 3d environment . the highly stylised visuals superb voice acting and sophisticated writing earned grim fandango many plaudits including gamespot s game of the year award . 22 escape from monkey island 2000 the fourth installment in the monkey island series featured the same control scheme as grim fandango and was generally well received . it is the last original adventure game the company has released . two sequels to existing franchises full throttle hell on wheels and sam & max freelance police were announced to be in development but these projects were cancelled in 2003 and 2004 respectively before the games were finished . when the rights to the sam & max franchise expired in 2005 the creator of sam & max steve purcell regained ownership . he then licensed sam & max to telltale games to be developed into an episodic game . telltale games is made up primarily of former lucasarts employees who had worked on the sam & max sequel and were let go after the project was canceled . 23 lucasarts halted adventure game development for the next five years focusing instead on their star wars games . they remained silent and did not re release their old games on digital distribution platforms as other studios were doing at the time . however in 2002 the company pledged that at least fifty percent of its releases would have nothing to do with star wars . 24 it was not until 2009 that they returned to the genre . on june 1 2009 lucasarts announced both the secret of monkey island special edition a high definition remake of the original game with updated graphics music and voice work and tales of monkey island a new episodic installment in the monkey island series that was developed by telltale games . then on july 6 2009 they announced that they would be re releasing a number of their classic games including indiana jones and the fate of atlantis and loom on steam . the re releases were for the first time native versions built for microsoft windows . this was the first time in many years that the studio had offered any support for its classic adventure titles . the second game in the monkey island series also received a high definition remake entitled monkey island 2 lechuck s revenge special edition in 2010 . both monkey island special edition games were released in a compilation monkey island special edition collection exclusively in europe in 2011 . the release of the unofficial scumm virtual machine scummvm has led to something of a resurgence for lucasarts adventure games among present day gamers . using scummvm legacy adventure titles can easily be run on modern computers and even more unusual platforms such as video game consoles mobile phones and pdas . simulation games edit in the late 1980s and early 1990s lucasfilm games developed a series of military vehicle simulation games the first of which were the naval simulations phm pegasus in 1986 and strike fleet in 1987 . 25 these two titles were published by electronic arts for a variety of computer platforms including pc commodore 64 and apple ii . in 1988 battlehawks 1942 launched a trilogy of world war ii air combat simulations giving the player a chance to fly as an american or japanese pilot in the pacific theater . battlehawks 1942 was followed by their finest hour the battle of britain in 1989 recreating the battle between the luftwaffe and raf for britain s air supremacy . the trilogy ended with secret weapons of the luftwaffe in 1991 in which the player could choose to fly on either the american or german side . the trilogy was lauded for its historical accuracy and detailed supplementary material secret weapons of the luftwaffe for instance was accompanied