Let’s file this one under “Too Soon”. Seen at the “Invaders!” booth, tucked away in Hall Four of the Games Convention being held in Leipzig, Germany right now, was this non-interactive installation of the classic Taito space faring aliens laying waste to the Twin Towers. It was projected on a massive screen in the vicinity of lots of classic Space Invaders goods, as the game is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It was… it was weird.
This hits three year’s after the first and last game to take on the World Trade Centre hit Brooklyn.
Honestly, we’re not quite sure what’s going on here quite yet, as we didn’t know the German translation for “What the fuck?” We do know, however, that the 8-bit tower jumpers and the negative score applied to each WTC tower to indicate damage aren’t going to sit well with, we’re thinking, everyone we know who doesn’t hate freedom.
Update: It is an art exhibit, according the the French-American artist.
News of the rumoured layoffs at LucasArts that we broke yesterday afternoon were confirmed today by the developer, which maintained that they remain committed to their internal studio.
“I can confirm we had layoffs yesterday they were in the studio”, said LucasArts spokeswoman Margaret Grohne. “They had to do with where we are in our product life cycles”.
Yesterday a number of former LucasArts staffers contacted us to say that 75 to 100 employees were laid off from the company, including VP of Product Development Peter Hirschmann and the producer of LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Shawn Storc.
We’ve heard from multiple sources today that LucasArts has laid off approximately 50-100 of its employees, including a handful of higher profile names like VP of Product Development Peter Hirschmann. The move comes just a few days after the publisher and developer released LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures on multiple platforms and four months after the departure of LucasArts president Jim Ward.
