Amazon explains why the amazing new Lord of the Rings MMO we dreamed of for 2 years failed

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Amazon announced in 2019 that it was developing a new Lord of the Rings MMO that would have looked great alongside the new TV series, Rings of Power. But the project was suddenly stopped in 2021. Now Amazon’s gaming boss explains why it went wrong.

What was that project? In July 2019, Amazon announced that it would be developing an MMO in addition to a new TV series for “Lord of the Rings”:

  • The game was set to predate the Lord of the Rings movies and books, become Free2Play, and be released for PC and consoles
  • The game was to be developed by Chinese company Leyou, which also owned Warframe developer Digital Extremes
  • For 2 years there was always a sign of life from the project: It was said that it should be a big AAA title. But then the sad news came in April 2021: Amazon had stopped the project.

    • The new TV series is a topic of conversation around the world right now:

    Tencent and Amazon were both too big to work together

    This is the new information: Now the head of Amazon Gaming, Christoph Hermann, spoke to GameSpot about the end of the MMO.

    He says: When Leyou was bought by the tech company Tencent, things started to get “very complicated”. Ultimately, Amazon decided to drop the project and move on:

    We had a deal with a company in Hong Kong, Leyou. I think it would have been great to work with them. But Leyou was bought by Tencent and things got very complicated.

    Christopher Hartman, Amazon Games President

    According to Hartmann, the copyright owner, Middle-earth Enterprises, had a clause in the contract guaranteeing they could end the deal if one of the partners was bought out: When Tencent bought Leyou, Middle-earth Enterprises pulled the clause and the things stopped.

    Hartmann says: While he believes it was possible to further develop the “Lord of the Rings” MMO, after the negotiations had dragged on, Amazon ended it.

    A gaming company is bigger than Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft – And their crest is a fucking penguin

    Ultimately, says Hartmann, Amazon and Tencent were too large corporations to tackle a project and develop a game together as partners. So they decided not to work together. It would just have dragged on too long.

    With the huge success of the “Rings of Power” series on Amazon Prime, many at Amazon might wish things had been a little different back then. A new MMO for Lord of the Rings would surely be snatched out of Amazon’s hands right now:

    2 new trailers for Dungeons & Dragons and Lord of the Rings really get you in the mood for fantasy MMORPGs again

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