Rights Sold for Lord of the Rings MMORPG

Posted on March 23, 2005

Turbine, Inc. has finalized a deal with Tolkien Enterprises and Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) that grants Turbine the exclusive right to develop and publish massively multiplayer online worlds based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit literary works. All publishing responsibilities previously assumed by VU Games for the online license have been transitioned to Turbine.

The Middle-Earth Online community has already swelled to about 100,000 registered fans. Lots of people are on the site simply to discuss the upcoming game. 100,000 is great base and one would expect an MMORPG based on LOTR to do very well -- especially since the World of Warcraft online game now claims over 1.5 million users. Turbine said its production team is considering changes to improve the game and will launch Middle-Earth Online in 2006. The company said specific details and dates regarding the game's development will be announced in the near future.

Update: The website for The Lord of the Rings Online is located at lotro.com. Here is a trailer for the game:

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