EA Locks Up Lord of the Rings IP

Gamasutra has the word that EA has the Lord of the Rings IP locked up through the end of next year. With the additional license for the books under their wing and no competition from Vivendi, they have big plans set for their next game inside the franchise world. "The announcement follows EA's previously announced The Lord of the Rings: The White Council, an open world RPG for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. However, with EA making plans for a new The Lord Of The Rings title, the fate of this project, once referred to as the cryptic Project Gray Company, remains uncertain. EA confirmed in early February that the game, while not canceled, had been put on hold." Relatedly, Game|Life notes that one million players will soon be traveling through Middle Earth as the open beta for Lord of the Rings Online gets underway. If you signed up to get in, you probably will. Update: 03/30 04:00 GMT by Z : The text referring to the White Council game was edited on the Gamasutra story, and here as well to reflect that.

Clarification

[SkeptAck]

Gamasutra has the word that EA has the Lord of the Rings IP locked up through the end of next year.

That is, of course, with the exception of the LotR MMORPG mentioned in the article, which is being developed by Turbine, published in the US by Midway, and published in the UK by Codemasters.

Re:Isn't this news like 5 years old?

[Rob T Firefly]

The news is EA securing the exclusive rights to the films and books through 2008. Before, EA had the exclusive rights to the films, but couldn't use things from the books that were not in the films. Sierra was able to grab game rights to the books, without being allowed to use the material from the films, but still able to cash in on the renewed interest in all things LOTR.

Re:But did EA get dibs on

[voice_of_all_reason]

Bilbo's Birthday Party to the start of the Quest was 17 years and it took the Hobbits about a year and a half to travelto mordor and back. (April 3018, when Gandalf arrived at Hobbiton until November 3rd, 3019, the Battle of Bywater).

Silmarilion takes place over about 5500 years. The first 4500 were before the awakening of the elves, 500 or so before the sundering of the Noldor, and then another 500 between days after the creation of the Sun and the Moon until Melkor was cast down.

Long time, so sayeth wikipedia.

Since people aren't going to RTFA...

[cspariah]

...it should probably be clarified here:

The license for the movies and the license for the books are two separate licenses.

In addition, the license for MMOs and the license for non-MMOs are two separate licenses.

So that's four licenses total. Vivendi had the licenses for the books, EA had the non-MMO license for the movies.

Additional detail, based on articles I've read on the topic:

EA has been churning out tons of games based on the movies since Fellowship hit theaters, and in 2005 they got the non-MMO license for the books as well. I'm not sure whether or not EA ever had the MMO license for the movies, but that license is not particularly valuable without the MMO license for the books as well. (You'd only be able to show things depicted in the films, NOTHING else.)

Turbine started developing the LOTRO MMO for Vivendi, this was when it was called Middle-Earth Online. Turbine eventually bought the license from Vivendi and re-branded the game as Lord of the Rings Online, they're self-publishing but Midway and Codemasters are handling distribution.

I imagine that Turbine must have investigated getting the MMO license for the movies as well, but I do not know if that ever happened. My understanding of these things is that if they went with that, they might have to rework all of their art assets to match the films, which would likely be a nightmarish PITA.

So now we've got EA with the non-MMO license for both the movies and the books. Turbine has the MMO license for the books. I have no clue who has the MMO license for the movies, not that it'd be valuable to anyone other than Turbine at this point.

Also please note that this is JUST the Lord of the Rings trilogy I'm talking about here. Silmarillion and The Hobbit are their own messy subjects.

Re:Since people aren't going to RTFA...

[Anonymous Coward]

Turbine also holds the MMO rights for The Hobbit, but not The Silmarillion. They are attempting to build LOTR-Online in a way that doesn't contradict the Silmarillion, but they are not permitted to draw source material from it.

submission quote is incorrect

[Edgewize]

This submission is omitting the fact that The White Council is no longer in production. I'm also not sure where it takes the Sims 2 AI line from, because that is not mentioned in the article at all.

The announcement follows EA's previously announced The Lord of the Rings: The White Council, an open world RPG for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. However, with EA making plans for a new The Lord Of The Rings title, the fate of this project, once referred to as the cryptic Project Gray Company, remains uncertain. EA confirmed in early February that the game, while not canceled, had been put on hold.