Warner Bros. Buys Turbine

[Logan Westbrook]

Warner Bros. Buys Turbine

Media giant Warner Bros. has acquired MMO developer Turbine.

Warner Bros. has added another developer to its collection. Turbine, creators of Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online, is the most recent addition to the Warner Bros. family, joining the likes of Rocksteady and TT Games.

The acquisition means that Warner Bros. now holds all the rights to make Lord of the Rings videogames, as Turbine had managed to hold on to the rights to the MMO after Warner Bros. got the license from EA.

Home entertainment group president Kevin Tsujihara called the move "a strong strategic fit", saying: "Turbine's renowned online game development and publishing expertise will help us develop additional online product offerings, while also providing us with new and innovative ways to market and communicate with our consumers."

Source: 1up [http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3178914]



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[Onyx Oblivion]

Cool with me. Don't they also own the F.E.A.R. license?

 

[oppp7]

I haven't really seen anything from WB for years and years. I know they run a channel and all, but when I read this all I could think about was the Animaniacs in an MMO setting.

 

[Brad Shepard]

Heres to them not messing anything up.

 

[Mumorpuger]

I'm particularly excited about this, but the official thread on the LOTRO forums has a lot of doom-and-gloomers.

Seems a lot of them feel that it's the beginning of the end- WB will think Turbine isn't making enough money and shut it down. (I think they've been bricked in the head.)

Others are worried that the game will move away from the lore and become Peter-Jacksonified, which I don't feel will happen, since Turbine has been fairly good about sticking to the original stories, aside from obvious concessions needed to make a mumorpuger work.

However, if Turbine decided to replace the in-game NPCs with the likenesses and voices of the movie cast, I would probably die of excitement.

Running around with Ian McKellen and crew would be amazing!

 

[Aura Guardian]

Cool with me. Don't they also own the F.E.A.R. license?

Yes they do.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Cool with me. Don't they also own the F.E.A.R. license?

Yes they do.

Have they owned it the whole time, or just since FEAR 2?

 

[Aura Guardian]

Cool with me. Don't they also own the F.E.A.R. license?

Yes they do.

Have they owned it the whole time, or just since FEAR 2?

Since F.E.A.R. 2 I believe

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Cool with me. Don't they also own the F.E.A.R. license?

Yes they do.

Have they owned it the whole time, or just since FEAR 2?

Since F.E.A.R. 2 I believe

I liked F.E.A.R. 2, I am just worried about the change of devs for FEAR 3...Oh well. I think this partnership will work just fine with Turbine, after all. They obviously don't take games lightly.

 

[xpacerx]

the also acquired Rocksteady Studios not to long ago. looks like Warner Bros. are making a hardcore push for the gaming market

 

[Delusibeta]

the also acquired Rocksteady Studios not to long ago. looks like Warner Bros. are making a hardcore push for the gaming market

Didn't they buy out 5th Cell (the Scribblenauts devs) as well?

Tip to WB: Take down DDO's Offer Wall, because it's a scam. Scratch that, Turbine noticed the wall o' hate about it.

 

[Billion Backs]

Interesting.

No longer a LOTRO player, still play some occasional D&D Online.

I guess we'll see where it takes Turbine. They seem like decent company to me, I've played a good portion of what they did before.

 

[Novaova]

Kevin Tsujihara: "Turbine's renowned online game development and publishing expertise will help us develop additional online product offerings, while also providing us with new and innovative ways to market and communicate with our consumers."

-- easily the most soul-less piece of business-speak I've read today. This is a bad sign.

 

[RedFox042]

I haven't really seen anything from WB for years and years. I know they run a channel and all, but when I read this all I could think about was the Animaniacs in an MMO setting.

just as long as I get to play as Pinky we'll be all good!

 

[WastedHero]

I wonder how many people that worked on Asheron's Call are still at Turbine. It's been around 10 years, have they gotten to 100% turnover yet or is there still some old holdout developer that remembers the days of monthly content updates and zoneless MMORPG's.

I hope so.

 

[Sethzard]

This might be interesting, It could mean a batman MMO, and that would probably be pretty awesome.

 

[Jared]

Intresting...well, heres hoping they dont do to Turnbine what Activision did to IW..

 

[fix-the-spade]

Well, either this will be good for Turbine.
Or their reputation for taking care of customers is about to get flushed.

We shall see...