After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.

Staff were informed of the shutdown this morning, according to a reliable Kotaku source. Some 150 people were laid off, and both of the studio's current projects?Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313?were cancelled. Disney will still use the LucasArts name to license games, but the studio is no more.

Publicly, Disney is saying their current games could be licensed out to a different publisher or developer, but according to our source, that's unlikely. Our source says Lucas has pursued the option for "one or both games," but nothing happened. "With the teams now basically being dispersed I think both games are effectively dead forever," our source said.

A second source also told Kotaku this afternoon that the chances of Lucas licensing out 1313 are very slim. The odds are "effectively zero," the source said.

Lucasfilm has long had a strategy of sharing technical resources and staff among visual effects, animation and games. But with production finished on the ?Clone Wars? animated series and the next Star Wars animated series not yet in production, and the closing of LucasArts, a portion of its staff was left working only for ILM?s vfx business.

?It?s impossible for ILM to absorb all of those resources,? said a Lucasfilm spokesperson, ?so with this change came the necessity for ILM to align itself and take responsibility for its own resources.? The company would not disclose the number of staffers who are being let go, but the group includes IT staffers and support staff.