Lord of the Rings With New Owner; Publisher's Shopping Spree
Embracer Group will acquire Middle-earth Enterprises, and with it the rights to create adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. The conglomerate has also bought out the developers of Teardown and the Killing Floor series.
Source: The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game.
The last several months have been a period of buying spree for Embracer Group. However, the conglomerate does not intend to slow down and has just announced plans for more acquisitions.
Embracer acquires The Lord of the Rings
The most important purchase concerns the rights to create adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's most popular works.
- Embracer has signed an agreement, under which it will acquire Middle-earth Enterprises along with all rights to create adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and licensing them to other companies, as well as unspecified at the time of the transaction additional works from the brand authorized by the Tolkien Estate Foundation and Harper Collins Publishing.
- The acquired rights will enable the Embracer Group to create video games, board games and movies set in Middle-earth unhindered. The corporation will also be able to produce a variety of gadgets and even open theme parks.
- As part of the deal, Embracer will not have to obtain licenses for these adaptations and ventures. On the contrary, anyone who wants to develop new games or movies, for example, will have to obtain a license from the new owner of Middle-earth Enterprises.
- Licenses granted prior to this transaction (e.g., for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria or The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth) will remain important.
- Embracer already has a lot of experience working with the brand. The group includes the Asmodee Group, which has released more than a dozen tabletop games (board and card games) inspired by Tolkien's work over the past two decades.
Embracer's other purchases
The company wasn't content with just acquiring Middle-earth Enterprises, however. At the same time, it announced the signing of agreements as part of which the group will soon become the owner of:
- Tripwire Interactive, the authors of the series Red Orchestra and Rising Storm and the Killing Floor series;
- Tuxedo Labs, known for Teardown;
- Limited Sun Games, which produces limited edition boxed editions of popular digital games;
- Singtrix, which specializes in software related to sound processing used in gaming, karaoke and other entertainment industries, among others.
The Embracer Group has also acquired one additional company related to PC and console games, the name of which, however, has not been disclosed for now for business reasons.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Embracer recently reported that it intends to acquire dozens more studios over the next few years, so today's revelations do not mean the end of the group's buying spree.
