LucasArts slammed for no PC Force Unleashed

Randy Stude, president of the PC Gaming Alliance, has slammed LucasArts for not releasing a PC version of massively successful Star Wars game The Force Unleashed.

Back in May, LucasArts producer Cameron Suey told VideoGamer.com that it wasn't doing a PC version of The Force Unleashed because of the vast differences in power of PCs in people's homes.

He said: "The PC being the gaming platform that it is, someone with a $4,000 high-end system would definitely be able to play the Euphoria, the DMM and really technical elements of the game. But someone with a low-end PC would have a watered down experience, they would have to turn all the settings down and it wouldn't be the same game.

"On the other hand if we made that game for as many people as possible, because we are trying to make mass market games, something that everybody can enjoy, well then it's not taking advantage of what those $4,000 systems can do. So one way or the other depending on how you build that lead PC SKU, it's not going to be for the same amount of people, it's going to be not as good or only for a select few people. No matter where you pick that bar somebody's out of luck."

In an interview with VideoGamer.com, set to be published next week, Stude described the excuse as "uneducated" and said LucasArts "hasn't made a good PC game in a long time".

He said: "That's not an educated answer. In the last several years there have been at least 100 million PCs sold that have the capabilities or better of an Xbox 360. It's ridiculous to say that there's not enough audience for that game potentially and that it falls into this enthusiast extreme category when ported over to the PC. That's an uneducated response."

When asked if he believed Suey's explanation might not be truthful, Stude replied: "I think you probably got plenty of feedback and opinions from your readers and my personal opinion is if they're making games for the Wii, Xbox and PS3 they're scaling their experience to meet all three of those platforms. They're good on the Wii, better on the Xbox 360 and the best on the PS3. There's no argument that they could give not to be able to support good better and best on the PC."

He went on to make some damning comments regarding the quality of LucasArts' games as well as their current development strategy, which he called "job shopping".

"LucasArts hasn't made a good PC game in a long time," he said. "That's my opinion. They make some pretty good games for the Wii, you know those little sticks you wave in the air, that seems like a natural fit for a lightsaber game, sure. But I think the last good PC game they made was probably Jedi Knight 2, and even their strategy games weren't that great. So I can understand why they would make that call.

"They're not really creating product within LucasArts themselves. They're going at it job shopping their IP. That may be a little controversial for me to say, but that's what I see. There's no development team necessarily within LucasArts any more, they've basically turned into an intellectual property machine and supporting the PC, why should they? It really doesn't fit their property."

Be sure to check the site next week for the interview with PCGA president Randy Stude in full.