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.

When Ward resigned, the company cited " personal reasons," but an alleged and anonymous LucasArts employee later suggested in a post on Gamasutra that Ward may have been pressured to leave, pointing to differing philosophies within the company.

That anonymous poster wrote " There are some that believe that more money can be made by licensing the SW and Indiana Jones IP to third party developers than through in-house development," hinting that the change in leadership " could spell trouble for the LucasArts division."

Ward was replaced by interim president Howard Roffman until former EA COO Darrell Rodriguez was named president in April. Whether the rumored layoffs are part of a plan to reorganize LucasArts development is unknown.

We' ve contacted LucasArts for clarification and comment, but did not hear back as of press time.

Update: While LucasArts public relations did not get back to us today, several former LucasArts staffers did, with one telling us that 75-100 employees were laid off from the company, including the producer of LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, Shawn Storc.

According to another source, up to 80% of staff has been laid off in departments such as Production Services, which includes QA and Compliance, with jobs planned to be outsourced overseas. Cuts were also said to be made in development, with art and programming staffers being laid off.

ORIGINAL: Ornodeal

Basically its oursourcing of the work. US companies' share prices are always dependent on profits against internal headcount. Offshoring or outsourcing effectively removes headcount. The company I work for does the same regularly.

" 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.

The layoffs come months after former president Jim Ward stepped down from heading the company and was replaced by Darrell Rodriguez, a former Electronic Arts COO.

According to our sources up to 80 percent of staff has been laid off in departments such as Production Services, which includes QA and Compliance, with jobs planned to be outsourced overseas. Cuts were also said to be made in development, with art and programming staffers being laid off.

While Grohne declined to talk specifics, she did say that Hirschmann was no longer with the company and that his departure was a " mutual decision."

While our sources told us that the layoffs cut deeply into the developer' s internal studio, leaving the company short-staffed, Grohne maintained that the company is healthy and remains committed to internal development.

" We are healthy," she said. " LEGO Indie was launched on seven platforms to positive reviews, The Force Unleashed and Fracture are on track for this fall. We have a good slate of games and we have some good stuff going on in production.

" We are definitely committed to the internal studio."