Former LucasArts Employee Slams Free Radical for Star Wars: Battlefront III Cancellation
Studio co-founder Steve Ellis responds.
The tragic fate of Star Wars: Battlefront III has sparked a rather nasty, public dispute between a former LucasArts employee and Free Radical co-founder Steve Ellis. The anonymous LucasArts worker called Ellis out for "whitewashing" the events that led to the game's cancellation, calling the recent "99 per cent completion" claim "bullsh*t."
"A generous estimate would be 75 percent of a mediocre game," the employee told GameSpot. "I was at LucasArts during this time, working on Battlefront III, and remember it well. Everybody from producers to marketing was 100 per cent invested in making the relationship work.
"We were desperate for a next-gen followup to Battlefront (the claim that the project was sabotaged for financial reasons is ludicrous. The [Battlefront] franchise was a huge money maker at the time). When Free Radical continually missed dates and deliveries, [former LucasArts presidents Jim Ward and Darrell Rodriguez] made many 'good will' whole or partial milestone payments to keep the project going."
The anonymous ranter then made a rather startling accusation - that Free Radical was using the money LucasArts was giving it to complete Battlefront III on finishing FPS stinker Haze. It was also alleged that the studio was 'shopping' TimeSplitters 4 in order to find funds to complete Battlefront III as a result.
Naturally, this riled Steve Ellis to the point where he issued a full, public rebuttal to all the claims made in the GameSpot piece. "What annoys me about the article is that I personally am accused of a whitewash, which is nonsense," he said. "While I don't know everything that my ex-colleagues and staff might have said on the subject, personally I have tried to explain what happened as completely and accurately as possible.
"The allegation that we used the LucasArts money to fund the completion of Haze is false. Aside from anything else, we didn't need to. When Haze slipped, Ubisoft supported us by increasing the dev budget to cover the extra time. The ironic thing about this allegation though, is that just about every publisher we worked with would simultaneously worry that we might spend their money elsewhere, but they would invariably ask us to move resources from another project onto theirs."
Ellis also countered the "75% of a mediocre game" claim made by the anonymous employee. "Until very recently there was a gameplay video on YouTube that showed exactly where the game was. It was leaked by people who were very proud of the game that they had spent over 2 years developing and wanted the world to at least have an opportunity to see it before it was consigned to history. Unfortunately, four years on, LucasArts have chosen to have the video removed."
On the subject of Battlefront III's actual cancellation, Ellis revealed that LucasArts was a company rife with financial problems, with major management replacements and layoffs across the board, as well as the cancellation of a number of other projects. If you'll remember, SPOnG reported on layoffs and cancellations at LucasArts back in 2008, so these counterclaims actually hold some water.
"We were told (and it seemed wholly believable given the aforementioned facts) that they could not afford to continue development of both BFIII and its sequel, so they negotiated the termination of BFIV, then later BFIII," Ellis added. "There was no 'termination for breach.'
"I stand by everything I've said. All I've ever tried to do is explain the series of events that led to the failure of Free Radical. We were not perfect. We made mistakes, but third-parties had a hand in our failure."
You can read the whole exchange on GameSpot.
"A generous estimate would be 75 percent of a mediocre game," the employee told GameSpot. "I was at LucasArts during this time, working on Battlefront III, and remember it well. Everybody from producers to marketing was 100 per cent invested in making the relationship work.
"We were desperate for a next-gen followup to Battlefront (the claim that the project was sabotaged for financial reasons is ludicrous. The [Battlefront] franchise was a huge money maker at the time). When Free Radical continually missed dates and deliveries, [former LucasArts presidents Jim Ward and Darrell Rodriguez] made many 'good will' whole or partial milestone payments to keep the project going."
The anonymous ranter then made a rather startling accusation - that Free Radical was using the money LucasArts was giving it to complete Battlefront III on finishing FPS stinker Haze. It was also alleged that the studio was 'shopping' TimeSplitters 4 in order to find funds to complete Battlefront III as a result.
Naturally, this riled Steve Ellis to the point where he issued a full, public rebuttal to all the claims made in the GameSpot piece. "What annoys me about the article is that I personally am accused of a whitewash, which is nonsense," he said. "While I don't know everything that my ex-colleagues and staff might have said on the subject, personally I have tried to explain what happened as completely and accurately as possible.
"The allegation that we used the LucasArts money to fund the completion of Haze is false. Aside from anything else, we didn't need to. When Haze slipped, Ubisoft supported us by increasing the dev budget to cover the extra time. The ironic thing about this allegation though, is that just about every publisher we worked with would simultaneously worry that we might spend their money elsewhere, but they would invariably ask us to move resources from another project onto theirs."
Ellis also countered the "75% of a mediocre game" claim made by the anonymous employee. "Until very recently there was a gameplay video on YouTube that showed exactly where the game was. It was leaked by people who were very proud of the game that they had spent over 2 years developing and wanted the world to at least have an opportunity to see it before it was consigned to history. Unfortunately, four years on, LucasArts have chosen to have the video removed."
On the subject of Battlefront III's actual cancellation, Ellis revealed that LucasArts was a company rife with financial problems, with major management replacements and layoffs across the board, as well as the cancellation of a number of other projects. If you'll remember, SPOnG reported on layoffs and cancellations at LucasArts back in 2008, so these counterclaims actually hold some water.
"We were told (and it seemed wholly believable given the aforementioned facts) that they could not afford to continue development of both BFIII and its sequel, so they negotiated the termination of BFIV, then later BFIII," Ellis added. "There was no 'termination for breach.'
"I stand by everything I've said. All I've ever tried to do is explain the series of events that led to the failure of Free Radical. We were not perfect. We made mistakes, but third-parties had a hand in our failure."
You can read the whole exchange on GameSpot.
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