I don't mind waiting another few years to see The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth here on GOG, but who has rights for it now?

I know it's a pipe dream but it also seemed impossible to bring Diablo here, right? ;)

Tolkien Estate?

edit: game was released by EA, so the rights to game belong to them, but they would need to renew the licence, which is not very probable.

Any licensed property will always be problematic, as the license costs might be more costly than what the game would make. And considering how hot the LOTR license has become, I can only assume the license fees have gone up since the game was originally made.

Dream on.

That game is one of the most buried there is:

1) Game was made by EA when they had the licence for the Tolkien movie universe. So they have the distribution rights for the game but cannot re-release it withot re-acquiring the Tolkien universe rights.

2) EA no longer has those rights. The rights are currently owned by Warner Bros. (they are making Shadow of Mordor games thanks to that).

So EA would have to buy out the licence from Warner Bros. (read EXTREMELY expensive), to be able to re-release the game in any form. And you can be sure as hell that EA will not invest millions of dollars into getting the licence just because of some 10+ years old game. It would be very unprofitable to them as a huge corporate company, so don't expect the games to appear here anytime soon, if ever.

EDIT:
Either find a physical copy somewhere or torrent it. You will not be able to get the game any other way.

I would be so happy to see BFME here on GOG and also No one Lives Forever 2. :)

Personally I loved Battle for Middle-Earth 1&2 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the absolute best movie tie-in game that everybody seems to have forgotten.

Considering the nostalgia I'm felling remembering these game, does anybody else know of any other Tolkien based games, that come close to the quality of these?

I loved Third Age on PS2 (And Xbox , and GC,and GBA). It was a decent TBRPG with some different aspects to it, but a little grinding could leave you virtually invincible and stocked to the brim with powerful items if you were so inclined. I always was.

...

It's sad that people would rather hold onto their license for some old product and don't make any dime from it, rather than making a deal to lower the price for the license and make some profit out of it.
It's actually a win-win situation once that inconsiderate and foolish way of human behavior is taken care of.

Turn Based RPG, that sounds amazing! Damn it EA, why wasn't this released on PC? This definitely goes in my bookmarks, especially since it's made by the same developers of Return of the King. Thank you, paladin181! It's also available on PS2, which is most likely what I'll end up playing it on.

EDIT: And here's something I never knew: both Return of the King and Third Age were developed by Visceral Games(before they were renamed Visceral) of Dead Space fame. I'm less surprised that I like Return of the King as much as I do.

good point - game is based on the cinematic universe, using likeness and Warner copyrighted material.

At the same time, it's owned by Tolkien Estate.

So it may be possible getting a license from BOTH companies would be required to make re-release possible.

I'd say the chances to get this re-released are very low

Sometimes the problem is, that there are so many hands in the pie, that the share of each just isn't worth it.

EA had the licence until 2009. Then WB Games (Interactive) acquired it and has been with them ever since.

Excerpt from Wikipedia:

"Video game rights to Tolkien's literary works were first licensed to Vivendi, which produced The Fellowship of the Ring in 2002 and The Hobbit in 2003. At around the same time licensing agreements for products relating to the films produced by Peter Jackson were obtained by Electronic Arts (EA), leading to the release of a series of games, starting with The Two Towers in 2002. In 2005 EA acquired the rights to produce games based on the literary works as well, producing further titles up to the release of The Lord of the Rings: Conquest in 2009, when the licensing agreement expired. Video game rights then passed to Warner Brothers."

First BFME is using the movie licence, the second BFME is using the book licence. EA would have to make so many expensive steps to re-release the games that it will most likely never happen. Unless EA outbids WB for the rights. So yeah....

And this fact is well known. Look at the prices of Battle for Middle Earth 1 and 2 on Amazon. Extremely expensive if you want a new one. The Rise of the With King is going for $139 currently. And if you want to buy the whole trilogy, it is going to cost you $350!!!

The two are completely different. Blizzard is the sole owner of Diablo.

BfME is in a licensing nightmare between Tolkien Estate, New Line/Warner and EA. Not going to happen.