Why are there so few LOTR games?

[tyrannosaurus rex]

It has occurred to me. The first Hobbit came out 2012 and during the 2012-2015 craze only one notable LOTR games was released. Shadow of Mordor, which has nothing to do with the Hobbit.

Compare that to the more regular stream we've had during the first trilogy years (some of those being genuinely good games) and afterward.

What's happening? Why are they not milking the LOTR franchise?

 

[Durandal]

Because most rights to making games based on a movie are reserved to big-name publishers like EA and Activision, like James Bond, Star Wars, Disney, Dreamworks etc. EA did used to own the LoTR rights, but its license expired and was sold to Warner Bros Interactive, who doesn't have that much codemonkey teams. Although there's like a new LoTR game every year, albeit in the form of LoTR Online expansions. Did you know that there was a LoTR ASSFAGGOTS developed by Monolith? Me neither.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth_in_video_games

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Lord of the Ring Online is still running? Nice MMO reminds me a lot of Guild Wars 1. Usually big cinema franchise games are one time hit and have a shorter support than COD games.

If we look at this list I only see Shadow of Mordor as a major title since the first Hobbit came out. No Hobbit hack n'slash for consoles, no Strategy games, no RPG. This is surprising, you would think they would murder each other to milk this. Warner Bros are missing on Billions here.

 

[pippin]

Iremember this game



The atmosphere was cool but never made it too far... the nazgul would always catch me.

War of the Ring is like Battle Realms with a LOTR skin. Never really played Battle for the Middle Earth, though.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

This game triggered a mental illness to a younger friend of mine. He would dream of being stuck in the game while sleep walking around his house. Had to stop playing video games altogether.

 

[Cadmus]

I played tons of Battle for the Middle Earth 1 and 2, they were great. Although it was some totally shitty engine, wiki says SAGE engine, the same as in C&C Generals which runs at the speed of a cold pudding whenever there's more units on the screen. Horrible performance in these games but also really cool stuff like physics, unit squads, tons of particle effects, etc. These were strange games and felt kinda experimental in a way, I miss them.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Iremember this game

Spoiler

The atmosphere was cool but never made it too far... the nazgul would always catch me.

War of the Ring is like Battle Realms with a LOTR skin. Never really played Battle for the Middle Earth, though.

I played this game up until the part where I had to fight some raptors (like flying shit) or something (it was after Mordor). Then I had to return it to blockbuster because my 7 days were up.

 

[Andhaira]

The last decade, even since the LOTR trilogy came out there was a new LOTR game out every year.

 

[Machocruz]

Even though the Hobbit movies made bank, they didn't catch on culturally like the LoTR trilogy. They kind of came and went, like gas.

 

[Anthedon]

Considering what is happening with the Warhammer (40k) license the Tolkien estate or whoever holds it does an excellent job.

 

[Kutulu]

Even though the Hobbit movies made bank, they didn't catch on culturally like the LoTR trilogy. They kind of came and went, like gas.

Because they were pretty shitty compared to the Lotr movies...

 

[Siveon]

If we look at this list I only see Shadow of Mordor as a major title since the first Hobbit came out. No Hobbit hack n'slash for consoles, no Strategy games, no RPG. This is surprising, you would think they would murder each other to milk this. Warner Bros are missing on Billions here.

Although it's still pretty common with children's movies, I'm seeing less and less video game adaptations of regular movies. There's no regular Marvel video games, they're all tie-ins with franchises (Lego, Disney Universe etc). I haven't even seen a new Jurassic Park game. They might've gone the way of the dodo - which is good news to me. I suppose it's not as profitable as it used to be, and I think most of them just went on to make cheap cash grabs on mobile and browsers.

I doubt anyone but the most dedicated of fans would make a decent Hobbit game that's true to the source material, anyway.

 

[Kutulu]

Maybe we reached a time where shit isnt sold as easily anymore? I.e. a licence alone wont sell shit if it isnt good (even if its popamole level good, mass appeal etc).
I mean if you take gameboy games, a time where nobody read any reviews, everything sold, and many (or most) of those games from popular licence x were shit.
So the licence holders have to spend money on actual, real developers & even then its no guarantee to make money.

And somehow big companies are absolutely unable to do anything on a budget. Whether you like Witcher 3 or not, EA or Activision could not have done anything
that vaguely resembles Witcher 3 on the same budget, even if they had it developed in poland they would spend too much of their money on bureaucracy & marketing.

 

[Jick Magger]

I'd imagine it'd be a headache to try and co-ordinate something with the Tolkien estate in regards to rights. IIRC, EA only has the rights to materials in The Lord of the Rings and maybe The Hobbit, they don't have access to any material from the wider universe (i.e. The Silmarillion, The Children of Hurin, etc). It's one of the reasons why in the big tie-in craze of the early 2000's, there was this weird mixture of Tolkien based games that would either ignore the wider books (i.e. The LOTR: The Third Age, The Battle for Middle Earth, etc), or ignore the films (The Hobbit, The War of the Ring, The Fellowship of the Ring), the former was licensed by EA, the latter by Tolkien Enterprises (now Middle Earth Enterprises).

So basically if they want to make a LOTR game that has nothing to do with the movies and is related to the wider universe of the setting, they'd have to wrangle with the Tolkien Estate (which hold the copyright to all his other body of work) to get the rights off them, and Middle Earth Enterprises. All of this'd probably wind up costing more than the potential profit of the game itself, seeing as the value of these rights have probably shot up in the past decade.

 

[Metro]

I can think of around four or five off the top of my head? And I'm sure there's a bunch more for consoles or phones. Anyway, most games based off of movies are terrible. Granted the LoTR universe is more than just the movies.

 

[Excidium II]

Granted the LoTR universe is more than just the movies.

But the movies are what matters since it's what the general public will recognize. Getting the license just to use middle-earth fluff can't be worth it.

 

[Deakul]

There's only so much you can do with the license and it's pretty expensive to do anything with it well.

 

[Outlander]

Because they were pretty shitty compared to the Lotr movies...

They were THAT bad?

 

[Trotsky]

Even though the Hobbit movies made bank, they didn't catch on culturally like the LoTR trilogy. They kind of came and went, like gas.

They should have only made two movies. The second installment of the Hobbit "trilogy" was one of the worst pieces of garbage filler in my lifetime.

That's surprising because Peter Jackson had more than enough clout to challenge the movie studio executives. A two film saga was enough Hobbit.

 

[JarlFrank]

They were THAT bad?

I liked the LotR movies. I, well... I thought some parts of the Hobbit movies were enjoyable, but overall they dragged on way too long, tacked on shit that's not even just not in the book but makes no sense whatsoever (ELFGIRL-DWARF LOVE STORY), and are huge CGI-fests with dozens of scenes that exist only to show off AWZUM CGI but serve no real purpose to the story. It was so heavy on CGI, the final battle looked like it was taken straight from a Total War game.

 

[a Goat]

Because making TPP action-adventure with open world available on your favourite console is a hard-ass thing for LoTR, especially without lorerape and then you have the complete inability of making annual franchise. FPS is ruled out by definition of course.

So what will you do? RPG? Lots of work, requires competent writers, able to not lore-rape the game.

Every other genre doesn't have enough mass-appeal or doesn't work on console.

and are huge CGI-fests with dozens of scenes that exist only to show off AWZUM CGI but serve no real purpose to the story. It was so heavy on CGI, the final battle looked like it was taken straight from a Total War game.

It doesn't help that the CGI is dogshit and half of the screen has to be blurred to not show it. I've watched 480p movies on my TV that looked sharper than this shit in 1080p.

 

[Metro]

Hobbit movies were a cashgrab, nothing more. There were a lot of memorable scenes/acting in the LoTR trilogy but I can barely remember anything from the Hobbit.

 

[Kutulu]

The only reason i can roughly retell what happened in the hobbit movies is because i read the book like 10 times.
As i said in the Lotr Movies thread: These movies look like shit, honestly sometimes even the actors look cgi.

Here is what i can remember from the movies:

Radagast, pretty much just because he was the doctor.
Evangeline lilly, dont know the name of her character, but shes just cute...
Disgusting Insect & Slug scene, Peter Jackson had the same scene in King Kong and it was better there.
Dain Ironfoot, scene was good: "If he chooses to stand between me and my kin, I'll split his pretty head open!"



That is all, i remember the book fondly, the movie not so much.

 

[Machocruz]

Every other genre doesn't have enough mass-appeal or doesn't work on console.

Those EA film adaptations that came out around the same time as the films were a guilty pleasure of mine. Good fan-service fun with a friend and better interactive movies than most of the interactive movies we get today. And they sold well. But the LoTR characters are way better for such a thing than The Hobbit characters. And the LoTR films had a better visual palette for games too. The fucking softcore porn lighting/haze in the Hobbit films drove me up the wall. Actually, it reminded me of the shitty bloom lighting we suffered through in the mid 2000s. Maybe they would be a good fit for video games after all.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

Because nearly every single fantasy setting is Lord Of The Rings by proxy.