Lord of the Rings Battle For Middle Earth PC online game servers shut down

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Lord of the Rings Battle For Middle Earth PC online game servers shut down

Posted Jan 5th 2011 8:00AM by John Callaham
Filed under: RTS

Remember when Electronic Arts had the rights to make games based on the Lord of the Rings franchise? We do. In fact it wasn't even that long ago that EA's Los Angeles RTS team made the first Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth game. The title was released for the PC in December 2004. In March 2006 a sequel was released and an expansion for the sequel, The Rise of the Witch King, was released in November 2006.

However EA no longer has the rights to publish Lord of the Rings games and just a few days ago on December 31 the online servers for all of the Battle for Middle Earth games were shut down. If you own the Xbox 360 version of Battle For Middle Earth II and Rise of the Witch-King you still have a few more days to play online; those servers will shut down on January 11.

EA also has a big list of other online server shut downs coming in the near future. On January 16, the Sims Carnival web site at thesimscarnival.com won't be available anymore. On Feburary 8 the online servers for the PC versions of FIFA 09 and FIFA Manager 10 will be shut down. EA states that these games and the many console game titles that it will also shut down represent just 1 percent of all online players on EA's online servers.

[Via VG247.com]

Tags: ea, Electronic-Arts, lord-of-the-rings, lord-of-the-rings-battle-for-middle-earth, lord-of-the-rings-battle-for-middle-earth-2

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Anyone know who has the rights to make RTS games for LOTR now?Posted at 11:25AM on Jan 5th 2011 by Solice

This is ridiculous. There are still thousands of people that log on for Lord of the rings battle for middle earth 2 on xbox 360. This is by FAR the best strategy game for the xbox 360. I blame EA for fu***** us over and i am 100% sure that every other player agrees with me. The least EA could do is keep the servers open or argue with whoever bought them to keep them open for the players. I plan on sending them loads of emails/phone calls/letters and to keep bugging them until they turn the servers back on. I hope others will do the samePosted at 9:56PM on Jan 10th 2011 by Mark Bressler

Yeah EA Games suck. They close done ever game severs, thats why I dont buy there shit no more cause I dont trust them. They can keep there GAY DRAGON AGE ORGIN 1 and 2 And that BFbad company. Dont worry guys if you have the pc version some MODDERS will create some kind of dedicated server for us to download. It may take a while though.Posted at 8:30PM on Feb 15th 2011 by EID444

I cant beleive they shut down Lotr! Its my worst nightmare, last night I tried to log in and it would not work. I have the XBOX just to play this game. I may have to get the pc version and play on GameRanger. I am so displeased im sick! There are so many loyal Lotr fans who play this game, I can only imagine that this is someones idea of a cruel joke, someone who wanted to crush our love for the game. Or the fact that we cant buy new games if we continue playing old ones! BS----- Games should have expiration dates in this case.Posted at 3:42PM on Feb 6th 2011 by alex