14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the rights to use the content from the Lord of the Rings movies in videogames is no longer with Electronic Arts. Warner Bros., which has created the movies, has now taken back the intellectual property and is probably looking for a way to create some videogames based on them. The news came by way of a report in the trade journal Variety, which cited unnamed sources inside the companies.
The rights to the movies initially belonged to Vivendi Games, but Electronic Arts acquired them in 2005 and renewed an agreement with Warner Bros. sometine in late 2007, covering the whole of 2008. The latest game that made use of the license was Lord of the Rings: Conquest, which was created by Pandemic and set to apply the Star Wars Battlefront formula to the Tolkien universe.
The game was not a big success, with reviewers slamming it for the limited scope of the battles, the lack of graphical polish and the limited gameplay options. Still, Electronic Arts created at least two successful games based on the rights it had, in the first and second installments of Battle for Middle Earth, which were real time strategy games.
Electronic Arts has recently expressed its interest in creating more original intellectual properties, which might be a reason in giving up the rights. The notoriety of the Tolkien-created universe is also declining, with the movies based on The Hobbit in limbo and not having a clear release date.
On the other hand, Warner Bros. become more interested in creating games and publishing them in 2008. The company has at least three development studios: Monolith Productions, which recently released F.E.A.R. 2, Traveller's Tales and Snowblind Studios. One of then could shortly begin working on the next Lord of the Rings game. Just don't expect any official news on it in the first half of 2009.