The intellectual property catalogue and worldwide rights to various JRR Tolkien-related media has been snapped up by Embracer, the huge games publisher. Embracer has been on an acquiring spree over the past year, and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ being added to its rank will certainly give it a lot of content to mine, as it now owns the rights to “motion pictures, video games, board games, merchandising, theme parks and stage productions” based on the world created by JRR Tolkien.
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Interestingly, it will also own the rights tied to any future literary work related to LOTR and The Hobbit that’s authorized by the Tolkien Estate.
This isn’t Embracer’s first Tolkien-related purchase either – last year it bought Asmodee, the board game publisher that has published over a dozen LOTR board games over the past 20 years. If the acquisition goes through, the company will also be working with Amazon on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series that starts streaming on September 2nd.
Embracer is also planning on buying more game development studios, according to various reports. The biggest name in its latest list of acquisitions is Tripwire Interactive, which is known for the co-op survival horror Killing Floor and the third-person shark sim Maneater.
If you feel like you haven’t really heard of Embracer, you’re not alone. Many have called it the “biggest games publisher you’ve never heard of.” But you will certainly know of many of the games and franchises in its stable. Back in May, it entered a deal to acquire several studios with a catalogue of IPs that include “Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain and more than 50 back-catalogue games from Square Enix Holdings.” That deal will cost the company $300 million.
