EA Games Renews LOTR License Through 2008

Electronic Arts Inc. has announced that is has renewed its license of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings franchise through the end of 2008. As part of its plans, EA Games will be developing an all new Lord of the Rings game to be released sometime during the year 2008.

In a statement released by Electronic Arts, Frank Gibeau, EA's executive vice president and general manager of North American publishing said "The Lord of the Rings is an incredible canvas to create epic games, and we look forward to our next project with New Line Cinema and Tolkien Enterprises scheduled to ship in 2008."

Electronic Arts, headquartered in Redwood City, CA, acquired the rights to create 'The Lord of the Rings' video games based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien in accordance with an agreement with the Saul Zaentz Company DBA Tolkien Enterprises. EA's rights to create games based on the New Line Cinema 'Lord of the Rings' film trilogy comes in a separate agreement.