One License To Bind Them All
Sierra confirms it has licensed the rights to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
Vivendi Universal Publishing has confirmed what we all knew already, with the official announcement that it has licensed the rights to make computer games based on JRR Tolkien's best known works - The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. These will be released under their Sierra brand. "The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings properties are the pre-eminent fantasy works of our time and represent one of the strongest brands in the entertainment industry", according to Vivendi Universal Games CEO Hubert Joly. "They provide a tremendous amount of rich material from which we expect to make some of the best fantasy games ever created."
The first game to appear under the new deal will be The Fellowship of the Ring, based on the eponymous first book of the Lord of the Rings, which is about to come to the big screen for the second time with the release of a lavish live action movie. Fellowship is expected to be released on "a next-generation console system" early next year, but future games will span all of the major gaming platforms "in order to make the interactive versions of Tolkein's great works available to as many gamers as possible". We can expect to hear the scampering of little furry feet on everything from Xbox to Gameboy over the next few years then...