You guys know Leyou owns over 60% of Digital Extremes, right? The Warframe folks?
Don’t forget, since it’s amazon that means they are making the MMO with the sweet sweet Lumberyard engine. I hear it’s great for MMOs.
Indeed, purchased a couple years after Warframe came out. They also own Splash Damage.
The chicken supplier thing I mostly added for humour purposes, though it does make clear that their nascent track record in gaming is essentially “we haven’t messed up Warframe (yet?)”. And Athlon Games, their new publishing label, basically has no track record of any kind.
Amazon Game Studios, on the other hand, have one bad racing game, and a bunch of unreleased projects to their name. I think they were formed, at least partly, from the studio that made that Killer Instinct game on Xbox One? And I believe they also made that Strider reboot. Though they were merged into AGS, so I have no idea to what extent that crew still exist within it.
Star Citizen is going to look great on it, when they finally release it a few years after the technological singularity.
I thought maybe they would be leveraging the LOTR series they’re making for Amazon Prime but the article specifically says the game and the series are being developed independently. So I don’t get it.
Wake me up in 2024 when the game hits beta or is cancelled.
You are incredibly optimistic to think either of those is going to happen by 2024, I love optimism!!! I was thinking…this will probably get canned with a weird tweet at 2 in the morning sometime in 2025, but now, I have hope that it may actually hit beta!!!
Thank you for making me remember that it’s not 100% certain this is vaporware!
I initially put 2023 but thought that was too optimistic!
lol. Once again, your optimism is driving the bus.
Spanish post:
El otro LOTRO.
I trough we stopped making or caring about MMO’s in 2014? *checks google thrend* in 2011.
https://trends.google.es/trends/explore?date=all&geo=ES&q=mmorpg,battle%20royale,moba
I just hope it’s not short…
Unsurprisingly, dead.
At least it only took 2 years to kill it.
Can they send that money to LOTRO instead?
Hell, yes.
Or just buy SSG and run with it.
With Amazon Games’ track record, it might actually be better off with SSG…
/tuba.
Not surprising in the least.
I wonder if the licensing for this was part of the giant $250 million deal they made that was centered on the television rights? I could see them thinking that an ongoing revenue stream from an MMORPG that enjoyed promotion alongside and tie-ins with their LotR Prime series could be profitable, but then vastly underestimating the cost and scope of making a competitive MMORPG in today’s market.
I mean, is there even a market for MMORPGs today? What was the last major release of a brand new game in the genre? Personally I kind of figured MMOs were mostly dead until virtual reality technology advanced to the point where you could make them truly immersive, at which point they would become a dominant market force again because who wouldn’t want to smash orcs alongside Aragorn and Legolas in VR?
Regardless of a market existing, I think it is silly to make a new MMO for a property where an MMO already exists (though I know it would be in a different time period). You’re just going to fragment the (already small) user base, ensuring that both end up dead. Buy the game from SSG and slap some new character models in, spiffy up the UI, remove all the ancient low-res stuff and you might have something worthwhile. Then make an expansion to cover the new time period. Far as I know, the existing LOTRO is still an excellent game, just has some outdated bits.
Agreed. I absolutely love Turbine/SSG’s LOTRO, still play it in fact. After 13+ years it may be in need of a new coat of paint, but the mechanics are sound and the attention to detail in the settings, music and atmosphere all make it the most immersive Lord of the Rings video game experience out there. Amazon’s money would have been better spent acquiring and improving it, then releasing more content. In fact, that would be just about perfect timing, as the original game has now advanced to Mordor, so would need a new direction to head in story and content-wise.
Resurrected! This time from the developers of New World.