LucasFilm's Singapore studio to focus on games?

A new job advertisement posted by game publisher LucasArts suggests that the Singapore digital animation studio opened by parent company Lucasfilm earlier this year may be set to focus on videogame work.

LucasArts is currently advertising for a human resources director, who would be required to deal with "heavy travel... to office in Singapore," with the job description implying that over 50 per cent of the new director's time could be spent in the Far East location.

Lucasfilm founded the Singapore office in early August, stating rather vaguely that it was a "digital animation studio" which could work on products ranging from film and television to games.

The studio is headed up by Gail Currey, who previously worked with Lucasfilm's famous special effects subsidiary Industrial Light and Magic on computer graphics effects in films including early groundbreakers such as Terminator 2 and The Abyss.

The appointment of a LucasArts-specific HR director who will be dealing so much with the Singapore office certainly implies that the studio will be working closely with the game publishing arm of George Lucas' media empire. However, it's not clear what exactly its role will be.

It seems unlikely, given LucasArts' increasing focus on working with external third-party developers, that Singapore will work directly on product development for LucasArts as an internal studio. One possibility is that LucasArts may be hoping to create a digital effects and animation house specialising in videogames, which would contract its talent out to third party developers and publishers - in much the same way that ILM has became the leading special effects house for the movie industry.