Cast your mind back to November 2011, and two big fantasy games based on established IPs came out pretty much at the same time: Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which went on to sell over 65 million copies, and Snowblind Studios’ The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, which failed commercially.
In retrospect, it was perhaps unwise for publisher Warner Bros. to release The Lord of the Rings: War in the North in the same week as Skyrim, given the extreme hype Bethesda’s behemoth enjoyed ahead of launch. But that’s exactly what Warner Bros. did — despite, it seems, the advice not to do so that it received from at least one high-ranking developer it had on its books.
Christian Allen was the design director on the WB Games Seattle leadership team at the time, working on the likes of Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Mad Max, and F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn. He noticed this week’s surprise Aspyr-developed re-release of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North across PC and console, and it sparked something of a trip down memory lane.
In a series of tweets, Allen said that he tried to convince the powers that be at Warner Bros. to avoid Skyrim for obvious reasons, but he was “overruled.”
“Wow, this is cool,” he began. “15 years ago I argued vociferously not to release this up against Skyrim, as it wouldn’t get a fair shake. I got overruled. Nice to see it get a proper release.”
Why did Warner Bros. make such an obviously risky decision here? Allen added some context: “Quarterly revenue motivations drive more decisions than people realize. It’s a big challenge with stock-price driven organizations. Must be hard to be an exec and go, ‘Well, this game will do better if we hold it until March, but my bonus will take a 50% hit.’”
Allen went on to talk about the impact Skyrim had on the visibility of Snowblind’s game. “At the time it really seemed to get lost in the wash, and every review just compared it to Skyrim (as I predicted they would),” he said.
“I think it only got like one review the week it launched,” he continued. “IIRC there was hardly any marketing, either they wrote it off or thought hardcore LOTR fans would just know about it, somehow.”
Following the failure of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Snowblind was merged with Monolith Productions, which went on to release Gotham City Impostors, Guardians of Middle-earth, and the much-loved Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow of War.
Last year, Warner Bros. closed Monolith down, having canceled its Wonder Woman video game. Allen is now design director on Steam hit Project Zomboid.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
