Why are there so few LOTR games?

[laclongquan]

There is softcore porn in Hobbit? I couldnt tell~

 

[pippin]

The Hobbit movies were made for kids, just like the original book.

 

[Kutulu]

If thats the case maybe they failed because they didnt know how to make kids movies?

While i found the books quite amusing here & there, the overall tone of the movies is pretty dark.
Every fight in the book was written in a way that even first time reader new that the company would win.
Reading the hobbit feels like this little snippet from the lotr movies:

The movies dont.

 

[pippin]

That was the problem. They wanted the movies to have the "edgy grimdark" feel some passages from LotR had, but it just feels out of place. The only thing that bothered me was the inclusion of the elven action gurrrl, the rest was more or less in tone with a kid friendly movie, but it failed to get that abstract element right.
What's weird is that LotR movies have more cringeworthy moments, but since those are few and -at the time- the movies were a huge technical achievement, people overlook that.
All in all, I feel fortunate to have been in the right age to be impressed by the LotR films. I was like 12 when the first one came out. I guess it's the same kind of feeling the people who got to watch Star Wars for the first time on theaters felt in the late 70s. I didn't really hated the Hobbit partly because of this- it was a nice nostalgia ride.

 

[Deakul]

War in the North is the only LOTR game anyone needs.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

A repetitive linear hack and slash with the cast of Dragon Age shoved in the LOTR universe and a high fantasy tolkienrape that disregard all the themes in the franchise. This is even worse than Shadow of Mordor.

 

[Naveen]

There are still too many.

 

[taxalot]

Still awaiting for LOTR Vol 3 from Interplay.

Anytime now.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Still awaiting for LOTR Vol 3 from Interplay.

Anytime now.

As i understood ,those were made by todays Blizzard,so you may wait a bit more.

 

[LizardWizard]

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

Ironic since the trilogy was pretty shit compared to book Hobbit.

 

[Archibald]

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.

I think it was all Jackson. If I'm not mistaken there are director cut editions of Hobbit with even more pointless shit in them. His solution to every problem seams to be "throw more shit at it".

As for the lack of games I think its Tolkien's estate "fault". Generally speaking they were not happy how movies turned out and how studios "didn't make any profit" from them. I'm not sure but there might some lawsuits going on too.

 

[Venser]

Because it's one of the hardest licenses to work with and everyone who ever worked on a LOTR game said it was a nightmare. The developers have very little freedom and everything they do has to be approved by Christopher Tolkien, Tolkien Estate and Middle-Earth Enterprises in order to perfectly reflect the atmosphere of the books.

"Approvals were amazingly complicated," Brown explained. "We'd push to do something with Rivendell, for example, and create a building as a large tree-castle thing that looked very organic. We'd hear nothing back for months. Then what would come down on high out of nowhere was, 'No, that's absolutely not going to work and you need to rebuild it from scratch.' Conversations with the Tolkien Estate were very stop-and-start, very staccato. It took us literally a year to work out an approvals process on a project that we only had two and a half years for. We lost a lot of work."

Also the movie and book licenses are split and if you're doing a movie adaptation, you can't use anything from the book that hasn't appeared in the movie.

 

[pippin]

That means Christopher Tolkien approved Shadows of Mordor?

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Because it's one of the hardest licenses to work with and everyone who ever worked on a LOTR game said it was a nightmare. The developers have very little freedom and everything they do has to be approved by Christopher Tolkien, Tolkien Estate and Middle-Earth Enterprises in order to perfectly reflect the atmosphere of the books.

Interresting but who cares about developer's whims. It's not like publisher care about freedom (and they are damn right in this case), LOTR is a cash cow until proven otherwise.

Also the movie and book licenses are split and if you're doing a movie adaptation, you can't use anything from the book that hasn't appeared in the movie.

I can see that as a big issue on the other hand.

 

[Venser]

That means Christopher Tolkien approved Shadows of Mordor?

heh, true. He is 90 now so he might not be the one dealing with iit anymore. Maybe we can expect a lot of new crappy LOTR games from now on?