LucasArts alum Matthew Shell has died
The marketing professional had 20 years of experience working on the Star Wars game franchise
Matthew Shell, a LucasArts and games industry veteran, has died.
Game Awards host Geoff Keighley shared the news on social media over the weekend.
Shell entered the games industry in 2002 when he joined Sega of America as a project manager. He worked with the publisher for one year.
His game credits at Sega included Virtua Tennis, Sega Rally Championship, and Sonic Advance 2.
Following this, Shell went on to work at Lucasfilm's LucasArts division for 14 years. He last worked as a senior product marketing manager and departed the firm in 2017. While there, he worked on marketing for Star Wars video games such as Star Wars: Battlefront 2, Lego Star Wars, and Star Wars: Empire at War.
Afterward, Shell joined Disney as director of brand marketing for five years. At Disney, he continued to work on the marketing of LucasArts game titles.
He created brand campaigns for games such as Star Wars: Hunters, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, and most recently, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
Shell was eulogized on social media by former colleagues.
Tony Rowe, formerly of LucasArts, said, "Matt Shell, my co-worker from the LucasArts days, passed away suddenly at too young an age this week. He was always great at getting people informed and excited about our games and will be sorely missed."
Ray Almeda, global PR lead of EA Sports, who previously worked at LucasArts, said, "I knew Matt for about a decade as we worked together to bring Star Wars games to everyone as we traveled the world. He had been doing it with LucasArts for 20 years."
"We will miss his jokes, love for sticky toffee pudding, barbeque expertise, celebrating Warriors championships the night of, and, of course, his profound fandom for his San Francisco Giants. Rest in paradise, my friend, and may the force be with you, always."