I Wish Big Corporations Would Leave The Lord Of The Rings Alone Already (They Won’t)

Amazon has apparently canceled its The Lord of the Rings MMO and frankly, thank God. Under no circumstances did we need Amazon Games, creator of New World and Crucible, anywhere near a The Lord of the Rings MMO. But unfortunately, the giant corporation cannot leave well enough alone, and because all anyone sees when they look at LOTR these days is giant cartoon dollar signs, they’re apparently working on more games. They shouldn’t.

This comes from a Polygon interview with Amazon Games general manager Jeff Gattis, who admits the company is looking at concepts for another LOTR game right now. “I looked at a prototype as something pretty interesting just a couple of weeks ago,” he said. “We’re just evaluating different concepts, but unfortunately, I don’t have a hard ‘This is what we’re going to do’ I can give you today.”

Man, whatever! I’m sure you did and I’m sure you are. Because Amazon cannot leave The Lord of the Rings well enough alone. Nor can freakin’ studio-gobbling Embracer Group, Warner Bros., or anyone else who thinks they have a shot at monetizing this thing. Every last one of these dorks in suits looks at not the books, or the world, or the themes, or the purpose of it all, but instead at how much money Peter Jackson’s trilogy made, and firmly believes that if they can stamp Frodo and Legolas and Sauron, or the vibes of them, on their own thing, surely they will reap more wealth.

The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s associated books set in Middle-earth are incredible works of literature. In addition to just being lovely and poetic to read, with an intricately built fantasy universe and interesting, complex characters, they also cover a lot of thematic ground. You can read them to ponder hope, or death. You can read them and think about free will and what it means to have it. There’s stuff in there about what it means to be brave and what it means to have power, about the trajectory of history, about war, environmentalism, theology, and more. Very critically, Tolkien’s work elevates and celebrates goodness, kindness, and peace: his greatest heroes are humble and small, and his world overall espouses a hopeful view that people can fight and ultimately win a better world for themselves and one another.

I could sit here and list the ways in which companies like Amazon would easily end up as the villains in Tolkien’s stories, with their insatiable amassment of power and wealth, wanton disregard for the environment, insistence on promoting the endless churning out of stuff, and history of treating workers poorly. A trillion-dollar corporation, the ultimate Smaug, shouldn’t be allowed within 100 miles of The Lord of the Rings. Read this statement, made when Amazon first announced the now-cancelled MMO, and tell me that this sort of language is compatible with the universe Tolkien built:

We have the clear ambition to create the highest-quality entertainment products for this IP, whether we utilize internal resources or team up with the best industry partners that complement our capabilities. We’re taking every care to deliver an MMO which will do justice to the expansive Middle-earth universe and delight players around the world.

This sort of language doesn’t help. While I firmly believe there are genuine lovers and understanders of The Lord of the Rings working on its games, I fail to be convinced that anyone in charge has any real love for them. Certainly not the individuals who reportedly abused and underpaid staff working on Gollum in 2023.

I want to be clear: I do think there have been good adaptations of The Lord of the Rings made by big companies. Heck, I think Rings of Power had some good moments. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and the sequel are pretty cool games, even if I think they probably shouldn’t have been Lord of the Rings-flavored. I also don’t think any work of fiction should be sacred. I don’t get to decide what’s acceptable or not acceptable to do with it. Hell, put The Lord of the Rings in the public domain and let’s get the wildest fan games possible out of it. I’m all in. What I’m utterly exhausted by is the stranglehold these massive corporations have on a series of really good books.

I know this is incredibly derisive of me, and perhaps a bit unfair to folks who worked hard on some of the stuff I’ve listed above. I’m just so over the cognitive dissonance, the endless IP-ification of everything, the need to make prequels and sequels and spin-offs and remakes of everything, the endless rehashing of ideas until they’re so far removed from their origins as to be unrecognizable. It feels wrong, and antithetical to what the books were about, that so many people’s first exposure to The Lord of the Rings a decade from now might be something with microtransactions attached.

I dunno, man, maybe I’m just getting old and am mad no one reads anymore.