Electronic Arts get rights to Lord of the Rings books

Electronic Arts get rights to Lord of the Rings books

Electronic Arts announced today that they have signed up to get the rights to the Lord of The Rings series and they would now be developing games based on it. This is just the latest in the latest series of hit movies that EA has managed to acquire rights for to develop games on. The gaming company however declined to reveal the financial details on this deal.

The company also confirmed that they are already in the process of developing two games on the popular fiction series. EA happens to be world’s largest publisher of interactive video games. They won the rights to developing games on the Lord of the Rings series from Tolkien Enterprises after Vivendi Universal failed to make proper use of the rights they already owned.

Vivendi Universal had developed a couple of games on this series a couple of years back but was not very successful in the long run with the brand name. Vivendi Universal Games has confirmed that it will not be publishing any additional games under the Tolkein license. EA would now be releasing ‘The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings Tactics’ for PC and PSP respectively.

Steve Gray, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Tactics at EA said in a statement: ‘Now that we are expanding our Lord of the Rings universe to encompass Tolkien’s books, we’ll be able to combine the visual impact of the films with those complex stories. The RPG genre, in particular, is a great medium for story telling. We are delving into unexplored depths of Tolkien’s works to deliver new, compelling, and immersive experiences.’

The news helped EA improve their share in the market by around 2%.