10 Beloved Video Game Studios That Publishers RUINED
6. LucasArts
LucasArts
This might technically be cheating, given LucasArts acted as both a publisher and a developer (it's equally true that problems within the company seeded their eventual downfall too), but there's no denying the industry landscape is worse off without it.
At its peak, LucasArts was one of the most formidable forces in the gaming industry. Front and centre to its success were its Star Wars titles, which it both developed in-house and published from external studios. Seminal titles like Monkey Island and Grim Fandango came from within the walls of LucasArts, and though the company was afflicted with a myriad of issues during its twilight, they were still creating genuinely worthwhile ideas, with Star Wars: 1313 its final E3 demo.
For all the good that Disney have done unto Star Wars since their acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012, there is no arguing with how poor their handling of the Star Wars license has been when it comes to video games. They effectively gutted LucasArts to shop the Star Wars license to EA, who are yet to produce a single-player Star Wars experience in the six years since they acquired the license.
It was such a needless exercise, and though there's reason to be optimistic regarding Jedi: Fallen Order, referring to LucasArts in the past-tense doesn't get any easier.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.
