Embracer Group, which has been slowly buying up every video game publisher and studio on the market, has just announced that it has bought Middle-earth Enterprises, the company that owns the big and small screen rights to most of most of most of most of most of JRR Tolkien’s games. major works such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Some background (and please bear with me, this gets complicated): Middle-earth Enterprises was a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, a Hollywood production studio that in 1976 managed to get the rights to almost anything to do with Tolkien in addition to publishing the books themselves. These rights were used to create the 1978 animated film and have since been licensed only to other companies—a venture overseen by Middle-earth Enterprises—never fully sold. Or, it did. So far. The Saul Zaentz Company filed to sell its rights earlier this year for an eye-watering $2 billion, and while the purchase price for Embracer wasn’t disclosed in its announcement, you’d guess the price they paid would be somewhere in that ballpark. [Update: in a separate announcement, Embracer say the total cost for all the acquisitions they made today was SEK8.2 billion, which is around USD$770 million]. As the announcement says, the purchase covers almost everything you’d associate with The Lord of the Rings beyond publishing the books themselves (whose rights are held by HarperCollins), including: Note that by purchasing Middle-earth Enterprises itself, Embracer does not necessarily have to cancel or reassign any existing Lord of the Rings rights agreements. Warner Bros. has owned the film license since the 1990s, for example, which is how Peter Jackson’s trilogy was made, and the upcoming anime is clearly unaffected since it’s specifically highlighted in Embracer’s announcement. As for what Embracer might want to do with the license in the future, that’s also spelled out in the press release: Other opportunities include exploring additional films based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from JRR Tolkien’s literary works and continuing to provide new opportunities for fans to explore this fictional world through merchandising and other experiences. With Embracer owning both a video game studio and board game company Asmodee (which in turn owns Fantasy Flight), you can expect a ton of licensed games as well (note that Asmodee already has the license of Lord of the Rings for board games). Of course it wouldn’t be an Embracer announcement with news that, along with buying Middle-earth Enterprises, the company also bought a bunch of other stuff today, including physical copycat specialists Limited Run Games, Tripwire Interactive (Killing Floor, Chivalry). Tuxedo Labs (Teardown) and, in a strangely poetic move given the buyers in question, Japanese studio Tatsujin. Their boss is Masahiro Yuge, a co-founder of Toaplan, the developers of Zero Wing, the game from which the “Your whole base belongs to us” meme comes from.
title: “The Lord Of The Rings The Hobbit Rights Were Sold To The Embracer Group Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-18” author: “Lisa Fasano”
Embracer Group, which has been slowly buying up every video game publisher and studio on the market, has just announced that it has bought Middle-earth Enterprises, the company that owns the big and small screen rights to most of most of most of most of most of JRR Tolkien’s games. major works such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Some background (and please bear with me, this gets complicated): Middle-earth Enterprises was a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, a Hollywood production studio that in 1976 managed to get the rights to almost anything to do with Tolkien in addition to publishing the books themselves. These rights were used to create the 1978 animated film and have since been licensed only to other companies—a venture overseen by Middle-earth Enterprises—never fully sold. Or, it did. So far. The Saul Zaentz Company filed to sell its rights earlier this year for an eye-watering $2 billion, and while the purchase price for Embracer wasn’t disclosed in its announcement, you’d guess the price they paid would be somewhere in that ballpark. [Update: in a separate announcement, Embracer say the total cost for all the acquisitions they made today was SEK8.2 billion, which is around USD$770 million]. As the announcement says, the purchase covers almost everything you’d associate with The Lord of the Rings beyond publishing the books themselves (whose rights are held by HarperCollins), including: Note that by purchasing Middle-earth Enterprises itself, Embracer does not necessarily have to cancel or reassign any existing Lord of the Rings rights agreements. Warner Bros. has owned the film license since the 1990s, for example, which is how Peter Jackson’s trilogy was made, and the upcoming anime is clearly unaffected since it’s specifically highlighted in Embracer’s announcement. As for what Embracer might want to do with the license in the future, that’s also spelled out in the press release: Other opportunities include exploring additional films based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from JRR Tolkien’s literary works and continuing to provide new opportunities for fans to explore this fictional world through merchandising and other experiences. With Embracer owning both a video game studio and board game company Asmodee (which in turn owns Fantasy Flight), you can expect a ton of licensed games as well (note that Asmodee already has the license of Lord of the Rings for board games). Of course it wouldn’t be an Embracer announcement with news that, along with buying Middle-earth Enterprises, the company also bought a bunch of other stuff today, including physical copycat specialists Limited Run Games, Tripwire Interactive (Killing Floor, Chivalry). Tuxedo Labs (Teardown) and, in a strangely poetic move given the buyers in question, Japanese studio Tatsujin. Their boss is Masahiro Yuge, a co-founder of Toaplan, the developers of Zero Wing, the game from which the “Your whole base belongs to us” meme comes from.
title: “The Lord Of The Rings The Hobbit Rights Were Sold To The Embracer Group Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-10” author: “Donald Lorge”
Embracer Group, which has been slowly buying up every video game publisher and studio on the market, has just announced that it has bought Middle-earth Enterprises, the company that owns the big and small screen rights to most of most of most of most of most of JRR Tolkien’s games. major works such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Some background (and please bear with me, this gets complicated): Middle-earth Enterprises was a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, a Hollywood production studio that in 1976 managed to get the rights to almost anything to do with Tolkien in addition to publishing the books themselves. These rights were used to create the 1978 animated film and have since been licensed only to other companies—a venture overseen by Middle-earth Enterprises—never fully sold. Or, it did. So far. The Saul Zaentz Company filed to sell its rights earlier this year for an eye-watering $2 billion, and while the purchase price for Embracer wasn’t disclosed in its announcement, you’d guess the price they paid would be somewhere in that ballpark. [Update: in a separate announcement, Embracer say the total cost for all the acquisitions they made today was SEK8.2 billion, which is around USD$770 million]. As the announcement says, the purchase covers almost everything you’d associate with The Lord of the Rings beyond publishing the books themselves (whose rights are held by HarperCollins), including: Note that by purchasing Middle-earth Enterprises itself, Embracer does not necessarily have to cancel or reassign any existing Lord of the Rings rights agreements. Warner Bros. has owned the film license since the 1990s, for example, which is how Peter Jackson’s trilogy was made, and the upcoming anime is clearly unaffected since it’s specifically highlighted in Embracer’s announcement. As for what Embracer might want to do with the license in the future, that’s also spelled out in the press release: Other opportunities include exploring additional films based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from JRR Tolkien’s literary works and continuing to provide new opportunities for fans to explore this fictional world through merchandising and other experiences. With Embracer owning both a video game studio and board game company Asmodee (which in turn owns Fantasy Flight), you can expect a ton of licensed games as well (note that Asmodee already has the license of Lord of the Rings for board games). Of course it wouldn’t be an Embracer announcement with news that, along with buying Middle-earth Enterprises, the company also bought a bunch of other stuff today, including physical copycat specialists Limited Run Games, Tripwire Interactive (Killing Floor, Chivalry). Tuxedo Labs (Teardown) and, in a strangely poetic move given the buyers in question, Japanese studio Tatsujin. Their boss is Masahiro Yuge, a co-founder of Toaplan, the developers of Zero Wing, the game from which the “Your whole base belongs to us” meme comes from.
title: “The Lord Of The Rings The Hobbit Rights Were Sold To The Embracer Group Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-16” author: “Michael Ayala”
Embracer Group, which has been slowly buying up every video game publisher and studio on the market, has just announced that it has bought Middle-earth Enterprises, the company that owns the big and small screen rights to most of most of most of most of most of JRR Tolkien’s games. major works such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Some background (and please bear with me, this gets complicated): Middle-earth Enterprises was a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, a Hollywood production studio that in 1976 managed to get the rights to almost anything to do with Tolkien in addition to publishing the books themselves. These rights were used to create the 1978 animated film and have since been licensed only to other companies—a venture overseen by Middle-earth Enterprises—never fully sold. Or, it did. So far. The Saul Zaentz Company filed to sell its rights earlier this year for an eye-watering $2 billion, and while the purchase price for Embracer wasn’t disclosed in its announcement, you’d guess the price they paid would be somewhere in that ballpark. [Update: in a separate announcement, Embracer say the total cost for all the acquisitions they made today was SEK8.2 billion, which is around USD$770 million]. As the announcement says, the purchase covers almost everything you’d associate with The Lord of the Rings beyond publishing the books themselves (whose rights are held by HarperCollins), including: Note that by purchasing Middle-earth Enterprises itself, Embracer does not necessarily have to cancel or reassign any existing Lord of the Rings rights agreements. Warner Bros. has owned the film license since the 1990s, for example, which is how Peter Jackson’s trilogy was made, and the upcoming anime is clearly unaffected since it’s specifically highlighted in Embracer’s announcement. As for what Embracer might want to do with the license in the future, that’s also spelled out in the press release: Other opportunities include exploring additional films based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from JRR Tolkien’s literary works and continuing to provide new opportunities for fans to explore this fictional world through merchandising and other experiences. With Embracer owning both a video game studio and board game company Asmodee (which in turn owns Fantasy Flight), you can expect a ton of licensed games as well (note that Asmodee already has the license of Lord of the Rings for board games). Of course it wouldn’t be an Embracer announcement with news that, along with buying Middle-earth Enterprises, the company also bought a bunch of other stuff today, including physical copycat specialists Limited Run Games, Tripwire Interactive (Killing Floor, Chivalry). Tuxedo Labs (Teardown) and, in a strangely poetic move given the buyers in question, Japanese studio Tatsujin. Their boss is Masahiro Yuge, a co-founder of Toaplan, the developers of Zero Wing, the game from which the “Your whole base belongs to us” meme comes from.
title: “The Lord Of The Rings The Hobbit Rights Were Sold To The Embracer Group Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-14” author: “Mamie Sanderlin”
Embracer Group, which has been slowly buying up every video game publisher and studio on the market, has just announced that it has bought Middle-earth Enterprises, the company that owns the big and small screen rights to most of most of most of most of most of JRR Tolkien’s games. major works such as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Some background (and please bear with me, this gets complicated): Middle-earth Enterprises was a division of The Saul Zaentz Company, a Hollywood production studio that in 1976 managed to get the rights to almost anything to do with Tolkien in addition to publishing the books themselves. These rights were used to create the 1978 animated film and have since been licensed only to other companies—a venture overseen by Middle-earth Enterprises—never fully sold. Or, it did. So far. The Saul Zaentz Company filed to sell its rights earlier this year for an eye-watering $2 billion, and while the purchase price for Embracer wasn’t disclosed in its announcement, you’d guess the price they paid would be somewhere in that ballpark. [Update: in a separate announcement, Embracer say the total cost for all the acquisitions they made today was SEK8.2 billion, which is around USD$770 million]. As the announcement says, the purchase covers almost everything you’d associate with The Lord of the Rings beyond publishing the books themselves (whose rights are held by HarperCollins), including: Note that by purchasing Middle-earth Enterprises itself, Embracer does not necessarily have to cancel or reassign any existing Lord of the Rings rights agreements. Warner Bros. has owned the film license since the 1990s, for example, which is how Peter Jackson’s trilogy was made, and the upcoming anime is clearly unaffected since it’s specifically highlighted in Embracer’s announcement. As for what Embracer might want to do with the license in the future, that’s also spelled out in the press release: Other opportunities include exploring additional films based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from JRR Tolkien’s literary works and continuing to provide new opportunities for fans to explore this fictional world through merchandising and other experiences. With Embracer owning both a video game studio and board game company Asmodee (which in turn owns Fantasy Flight), you can expect a ton of licensed games as well (note that Asmodee already has the license of Lord of the Rings for board games). Of course it wouldn’t be an Embracer announcement with news that, along with buying Middle-earth Enterprises, the company also bought a bunch of other stuff today, including physical copycat specialists Limited Run Games, Tripwire Interactive (Killing Floor, Chivalry). Tuxedo Labs (Teardown) and, in a strangely poetic move given the buyers in question, Japanese studio Tatsujin. Their boss is Masahiro Yuge, a co-founder of Toaplan, the developers of Zero Wing, the game from which the “Your whole base belongs to us” meme comes from.