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.

Hobbit Crossing?

[tepples]

If it is before will destroying the ring be the ultimate quest?

The game is based on the AI engine of The Sims 2. What we could be getting is the equivalent of a Sims expansion with hobbits.

That's one million *invited*...

[SkeptAck]

Strictly speaking, "open beta" usually means all 6+ billion of us are "invited".

'Course, it is LotR, so that expectation might not be out of line.

I liked this, too: "the most complete and authentic massively multiplayer online (MMO) world based upon the famous Books of J.R.R. Tolkien."

Uhm... ok!

hm...

[cosmocain]

...i liked the LOTR books much, because it was just fantastic to see the world evolve just in my head, with all that incredible creatures, races and so on. to me, tho whole spirit of LOTR is based upon "living it" inside my mind. so - the movies came out and i wasn't all too overhappy, even though they were indeed watchable - without killing the fantasies, that i made up when i first read the book.

but now, with all these games, merchandise, etc: i truly believe that this is not doing any good to the spirit of the whole story, even more to the books. it totally changes the reception of the book if you were to play with a little gimli or another comrade as a child. all this process of making up the characters, their looks is totally gone.

now reading something like "Sims 2" (even if it's only the engine) in an article to a LOTR game sends chills down my spine.

okay, not a very geeky opinion, you're allowed to mod me down ;)

Re:But did EA get dibs on

[the dark hero]

That would be one loooooooooooooooooong game. Its funny how the movies and the games never really give you a good sense on how long LotR actually is. They make it look like a walk in the park, but those hobbits went faaar from home.