Disney to Replace EA for Star Wars Games

Rumor has it that, Electronic Arts might be on the brink of losing their privilege of making Star Wars games from now on as they are most probably losing their licensing agreement of the franchise with Disney. Back in 2012, Disney acquired Lucasfilm and shut down LucasArts division almost immediately because they were not very interested developing Star Wars games by themselves and decided to hand over the task to some established third-party instead.

star wars battlefront 2 ea disney
Disney to Replace EA for Star Wars Games

RELATED: Star Wars Battlefront II Missed Sales Targets

At that time, EA was their top choice for a developer and publisher company to license the Star Wars franchise for making video games. So, an exclusive multi-year licensing agreement was signed by EA on 2013 with Disney and Lucasfilm to create a number of Star Wars games for all popular platforms out there. Since then, EA has released two Star Wars titles; Star Wars Battlefront (2015) and Star Wars Battlefront II (2017).

RELATED: Star Wars: The Last Jedi Update for Star Wars Battlefront II

Electronic Arts then acquired the developer studio of multiplayer first-person shooter games Titanfall and Titanfall 2, Respawn Entertainment all of a sudden for $151 million, while shutting down Visceral Games. Apparently, EA took charge of Respawn to finish working on a Star Wars title that formerly Visceral Games was developing. If the current rumor about Disney and EA splitting over is true, then the fate of that game will be quite uncertain.

RELATED: Star Wars Battlefront II Controversy Hurts EA Stock Price

In accordance to the most current controversy EA has created by subtly forcing micro-transaction concept though in-game loot boxes in the recently released Star Wars Battlefront II has caused a great stir among the fan-base and they were repeatedly bashed at various social media for this insensitive move. Things escalated so bad with this issue that EA even lost market shares and even missed their sales target at the end of the year.

star wars battlefront 2 ea dice
Battlefront II Widespread Backlash

RELATED: Reddit Bashed EA Over Battlefront II Loot Boxes

Despite EA shutting down the pay-to-win progression system for then, the damage has been done and their reputation was ruined. With worldwide fan-outrage against them, Lucasfilm isn't looking very impressed as well and they are already looking for other big-name studios to handle the licensing deal from here. Most prominent candidates among the studios are Activision and Ubisoft by far but there is still no confirmation from any parties just yet.

RELATED: Star Wars Battlefront II Micro-Transactions Outrage

Even though the exact nature of Electronic Arts' licensing agreement with Disney and Lucasfilm isn't exactly very clear but looks like EA was in an exclusive publishing agreement with them and therefore, any other third-party developer studio can develop Star Wars games for EA to publish. However, given the fact that EA do not work with other companies that they do not own or have some sort of control over, it will be difficult for a company to work on that matter.
Next Post Previous Post
No Comment
Add Comment
comment url