David,
If West End Games went under, then why is Alliance Games (largest game distributor in the U.S. I beleive) still receiving and shipping the stuff. If WEG goes under, it’s because Lucas pulled Star Wars out from under them.
Second, Decipher may have the lisences for the card game right now, but Ral Partha also held the rights to D&D mini’s until TSR/Wizards yanked it.
Daniel, I don’t have the details on the West End Games thing handy, but I recall at the time that they were going out of business. Then again, I know of several game companies that have “gone out of business” several times over. It seems to be a habit. They may do a bankruptcy reorganization or something. What evidence do you have that the license was pulled unilaterally? I mean, if they had a contract, that would seem rather unlikely.
Then again, you seem to have a grudge against somebody here (don’t know if it’s Lucas or Wizards or what), what with your claim that they will pull the license from Decipher – even though there is absolutely no evidence for that claim (indeed, they started a whole new game with TPM, since it obviously didn’t fit in to the setting of the original Star Wars card game).
Okay, Max, so I didn’t locate the exact quote from George. They’re spread out all over the internet and through magazines.
Rest assured that, though the shitload of extras I mentioned are perhaps not exactly as I have described (most of those are on the Insiders Guide and Behind The Magic CD ROMs anyway), but definitely that’s what his intention is at this stage.
When it comes down to it, maybe he won’t choose DVD as the medium, perhaps there’ll be a next generation of video disc technology instead. Maybe he won’t include storyboards, or commentary from people who have some disparaging things to say (Gary Kurtz and he are no longer close for example).
In any case - the reason he’s delaying is because he wants to do something uniquely special, and he hasn’t got the time to do it right now.
Sad as that may be for Star Wars fans, we ain’t got a lick o’ choice.
But Lucas doesn’t have to do it himself! Does he not have a staff? I mean, most of the stuff you list would be produced by others anyway. Why can’t he assign the DVD project to someone else, then inspect and approve/reject the finished product? His assertion that he “doesn’t have time” is crap. It’s not a one-man outfit.