Warner Bros. Acquires Turbine

NNUfergs writes with news that Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group has acquired Turbine Inc., creators of Lord of the Rings Online, Asheron's Call, and Dungeons & Dragons Online. Terms were not disclosed, but the Boston Globe claims the price was somewhere around $160 million. "Warner Bros. Interactive has bought a number of game development houses in recent years, in a bid to become a major power in video gaming. In 2007, the company purchased TT Games, a British firm that develops family-friendly products like Lego Star Wars and Lego Batman. In 2009, Warner Bros. bought the assets of bankrupt Chicago game company Midway, maker of the popular Mortal Kombat games. And earlier this year, it acquired a majority stake in Rocksteady Studios, another British developer, which created the hit game Batman: Arkham Asylum. ... Acquiring Turbine will give Warner Bros. total control over all future video games based on author J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved Lord of the Rings novels. Turbine holds an exclusive license to make an Internet-based game based on the books, while last year, Warner Bros. won a license to make non-Internet-based Tolkien video games."

Surprisingly Localized & Short Sighted Article

[eldavojohn]

"I view this as Hollywood coming to Boston," said Turbine's chief executive Jim Crowley, who said the deal underscores Greater Boston's increasing prominence as a center for video game development.

Ha. I view this as a move to capitalize off of the upcoming Hobbit movies [wikipedia.org].

Acquiring Turbine will give Warner Bros. total control over all future video games based on author J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved Lord of the Rings novels.

Well, Warner Bros is the parent company of New Line Cinema [wikipedia.org], The Lord of the Rings film studio. Although I'm uneasy that Warner could roll out trashy videogames, I don't think it's too evil for studios to try to retain those kinds of rights as long as they exercise them and I suspect WB will.