LOTR Rights

Further information and clarifications

Vivendi Universal is a merger of French corp. Vivendi and Universal Studios. The Vivendi Universal gaming division consists of (1) Universal Interactive (best known for Crash Bandicoot), (2) Blizzard, (3) Sierra On-Line, and a fourth that's much lower profile (can't rememebr it offhand).

There have been 2 MMORPG Middle earth games that have been worked on. Sierra On-line worked on one a few years back. A programmer friend of mine was on that. It was gloriously fucked and died a messy death. Then back just before E3, a company called MM3D filed a lawsuit over contract negotiations for a LOTR online game they were doing. At E3 Sierra announced that LOTR online was being done. A third dev group is doing it. I forget who that is. I'll have to see if I can dig that up again.

There are other Tolkien games in development. The Whole Experience out in Seattle is doing Fellowship of the Ring for the XBox <http://xbox.ign.com/previews/16515.html>. I have another friend who worked on that for a bit. I'm hoping that'll come together and be good (fingers crossed). The folks at WXP <www.wxp3d.com> are best known for doing the demos for the GeForce.

Here's an excerpt from a VU press release you can find on WXPÂ’s site:
"Under the deal, VU Publishing's Sierra studio will develop and release multiple games based on the literary works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings over the next eight years. The first game, ``The Fellowship of the Ring,'' in development by Seattle-based WXP, Inc., will be released in early 2002 for a next-generation console system"

There are other games based on Tolkien's works. I'm really not at liberty to say what games, by who, or for what platform. Rest assured that many folks out there are busy trying to make sure that the purists and the mainstream are both happy with phenomenal games.

Who the hell is going to make them in Vivendi is the question I pose.

I vote for Blizzard getting the call :)

T MINUS 12 DAYS AND COUNTING...

its a shame sierra's middle earth game never got developed.

LOTR RPG = DROOOOOOOL

Hope they won't make a 'family game' out of it...

But if it is really not news, why mention it?

first post?

someone give me some competition here!!!!