It seems that Embracer Games is honest with its greed, telling employees its plans to exploit The Lord of the Rings franchise to its utmost potential.
Not long after announcing a restructuring and layoffs, a webcast reveals the company’s aim to “exploit” J.R.R. Tolkien’s franchise as much as it can. According to IGN, the company claims that they want to turn this legendary IP into one of gaming’s biggest franchises.
“We own Lord of the Rings, and we know we need to be exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very significant fashion and turn that into one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world. That’s obviously something we’re going to be doing,” Interim chief operations officer Matthew Karch said during the webcast. “That’s a much better use of resources than some of the other projects that some of our teams have been working on.”
Obviously, you make games based on a major IP to make even more money, but seeing it said so bluntly is unsettling. These plans are also being made despite the cancellation of in-development projects and the closing of numerous studios.
Not helping is the fact that their games haven’t exactly lit the world on fire, with Gollum being the biggest example of that. Fans know that this game is the internet’s favorite punching bag and their next game, Return to Moria, doesn’t look great, either. With more games of this IP reportedly coming soon, the future of this franchise is looking grim.
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It’s a shame to see all this with Lord of the Rings, as the franchise has been home to plenty of great games. Whether it’s the PS2-era movie tie-in games or the Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor series, there are some great games here. They’re all better than Gollum, that’s for sure.