Less than an hour ago Warner Bros. Home Entertainment acquired Turbine studios, the developers of the popular Lord of the Rings Online. What this deal means for Turbine is yet to be told, but it shows us that Warner Bros. is definitely interested in digging into the video game market, acquiring several studios in the last couple years including Snowblind Studios. Will we see The Hobbit Online? I doubt it as we already have a Middle Earth themed MMO and honestly the time change is way to short for any major changes. The next few years will be exciting times for Middle Earth fans and with their recent purchase, Warner Bros. will be behind all of it.
“We have been looking to expand access to our online worlds to more players and more markets,” said Jim Crowley, president and CEO, Turbine, Inc. “This acquisition is very exciting because it allows us to expand globally while continuing to focus on creating spectacular online games that our loyal fans and players have come to expect.”
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Comments:
Aberrance:
That's actually rather neat. I'm semi interested in what direction Turbine goes now, maybe Lotro will cease to suck.
Freek:
I doubt a lot will change for LotRO... but WB may expand Turbine and have them develop some MMO's for their other IP's. Harry Potter Online anyone?
On a side note Turbine can now use anything they want from the movies. Though they already have a specific art direction now and wont go back to change anything existing, they can now make new characters and stuff look more like they did in the movies.
zach:
Well we havn't even got to the parts where the movies spent most of their time, Rohan and Gondor. I expect those will now look much more like the movies, but I hope they still follow the books stroywise.
Heron:
The acquisition by Warner Bros. will most likely not affect LotRO in any tangible way, at least not in the next year or two.
zach:
Yea I like LotRO just how it is. Although the Mirkwood expansion was kind of disappointing. I am looking forward to what they cook up next.
Freek:
Well hopefully Warner can draw more people to the game. Theres a serious shortage of players under the highest levels, which is why they're going back and making everything solo for those levels. If Middle-earth continues to grow it needs a bigger population that's more spread out across the levels.
Heron:
I've never really noticed a population problem, except when I play at really odd hours when everyone in the US is still at school/work or asleep.
Mithrandir7:
This is definitely interesting news, considering WB has already gotten into the LotR market. I haven't played the game in ages, so I can't fairly comment on the population problems.
zach:
I play on Elendilmir which is the unofficial Oceanic server and there is always someone for me to play with.
Freek:
There are people but most of them lvl 50+
zach:
My level 24 and 34 don't have much trouble finding groups. Maybe on some quests but usually not.
Samus1111111:
ya, I play on Elendilmir as well and rarely notice a problem with finding help (on-level or otherwise) for quests
Freek:
I dunno, I remember trying for eons to get a proper grp for GA, in the end just giving up and doing all the new solo quests instead.