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Disney's Lucasarts acquisition: 'I wish I owned Monkey Island', says Gilbert

Disney's acquisition of Lucasarts means that the house of mouse now owns the rights to Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion. However, co-creator Ron Gilbert is unhappy with the situation, and feels that he should own the rights to both.

Both games helped put Gilbert and his then-colleague Tim Schafer on the map back in the day, and sparked a revolution in point 'n click adventures. However, when Disney acquired Lucasarts last month, it also snapped up the rights to both titles.

Speaking with PC Gamer, Gilbert expressed concern over the deal, "I would find it hard to believe that Disney would do anything with them, just because I think they just have a lot more important things that will make them a lot more money. Star Wars, for example, just to throw out one thing.

“And they’ve even said—even when they announced this thing—they said they’re really focused on mobile games. They’re just not doing PC games, they’re not doing console games, it’s just not their focus. So, I kind of don’t think they’re really going to do anything, and I think this probably wasn’t even on their radar when they bought Lucasfilm either.

“It’s kind of sad in a way. Yeah, I wish I owned Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, you know? The fact that Lucasfilm owned them, I guess I was kind of OK with that, right? Because I made them there. But now that they’re owned by someone else–that kind of sits weird with me. It’s like, ‘Well, if someone else is going to own Monkey Island, it should be me that owns Monkey Island.’

“My only fear with Disney is that they don’t need the money. It’s not like I could ever offer them enough money to make it worth their while for them. They just seem to be a company that hoards IP, and that kind of worries me. If it had been anyone else but Disney that bought them, I would try to go put together some money and buy them back. But because it’s Disney, maybe not. But we’ll see, you never know.”

What do you make of Gilbert's concerns? Do you feel that Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion will lie dormant at Disney? Let us know below.

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Dave Cook avatar

Dave Cook

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Dave worked on VG247 for an extended period manging much of the site's news output. As well as his experience in games media, he writes for comics, and now specializes in books about gaming history.

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