Amazon’s Lord Of The Rings MMO Was Canceled Because Things Got ‘Very Complicated’

Amazon Games disclosed last year that the in-development MMO was in place in the world of The Lord of the RingsIt was cancelled because the team “was unable to negotiate terms to move with the title at the time.” 

According to reports, the cancellation was caused by contract negotiations regarding the franchise after Tencent acquired Leyou Technologies Holdings Ltd. (a company Amazon Games had been working with for this game). In a recent interview, Christoph Hartmann, president of Amazon Games spoke out about this sequence of events. GameSpotAccording to her, things became “very complex” after the acquisition. 

Hartmann said that they had an agreement with Leyou in Hong Kong; he believes it would have been great for them to collaborate with us.” Hartmann also spoke out. It just became very complex when they were sold to Tencent. 

This was due to a clause that had been added into the contract. Lord of the Rings license holder, Middle-earth Enterprises, that allowed it to terminate a rights deal if one of its partners – in this instance, Leyou – got acquired. After Tencent acquired Leyou, Middle-earth Enterprises made that happen. Amazon Games may have been able to rework its plans to include Tencent. Hartmann said that they attempted to reach a similar agreement. However, Hartmann stated that the negotiations continued for quite some time, with the studio ultimately deciding to end the process. 

“The question was sure. Maybe.” [this]Tencent and I could have collaborated to create something. But we are just too big companies for us to become partners. We will be developing the game while they license the property. We decided that it was better not to work together. After that, we attempted to find a compromise with each other but the process was just too lengthy. 

More information is available. Lord of the RingsYou can see video content in this Lord of the Rings Gollum gameplay release from July. Then read on about the recent delay of this game by several months. After that, EA will be developing an updated Lord of the Rings mobile game. 

[Source: GameSpot]

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