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Electronic Arts isn't looking so LOTR-like - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

January 12, 2001 at 05:27:22

The Motley Fool spoke with Stan McKee, Chief Financial Officer of Electronic Arts. Bottom line: they aren't looking for LOTR demographics.

Widespread rumors have fingered Electronic Arts as the most likely provider for a massively multiplayer online game based on Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" movies. And yet, despite more than six months of predictions and premature announcements by various publications, Electronic Arts has failed to confirm the rumors.

Now Stan McKee tells the Fool that EA's demographics are the 15-30 year-old male gamer market, but they are shifting more toward the large (and relatively untapped) female market. Approximately half of all online users now are women or girls. Electronic Arts leaves the huge game development projects to one of their partners, McKee says, and they are looking to expand into more "parlor games" among other new territories to address the broader demographic they are pursuing.

This just doesn't sound like a company planning to move into the void created by Sierra Online's discontinuation and apparent loss of license for the old Middle-earth Online game. Hobbits and wizards just don't seem to fit in with games like "Hearts" and "Bunny Love".