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.

There goes one of the most iconic game development studios ever, single handedly responsible for the golden age of the graphic adventure genre: The Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Grim Fandango… A piece of my childhood is gone with them.

Ironically, this simpler, more intelligent way of gaming is seeing a significant resurgence in the last few years, coinciding with the explosion of smartphones and tablets as gaming devices. And it’s easy to understand why: these devices are still severely constrained in terms of raw CPU power when pitted against current dedicated gaming consoles or desktop computers. That makes them ideal for playing this type of games, where the focus is on the story and the experience, and not so much on the graphics.

Man, I loved those games.