Sierra Entertainment, Inc. Announces Development of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit Videogame for Nintendo GameCube
Gamers to Assume Role of Bilbo Baggins in His Epic Adventure
BELLEVUE, Wash., Feb. 19 /PRNewswire/ — Sierra Entertainment, Inc., a studio of Vivendi Universal Publishing, today announced development of “The Hobbit,” a videogame based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s worldwide best-selling novel. The game is due to be released in 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube.
“The Hobbit,” developed by Austin, Texas-based Inevitable Entertainment, is a third-person action/adventure game set in the world of Middle-Earth. In the game, players take the persona of Bilbo Baggins, an unassuming hobbit who has been unwittingly thrust into an epic adventure. “Bringing the epic worlds described in Tolkien’s works to life through a video game has been an amazing experience,” said Russell Byrd, managing director at Inevitable Entertainment.
“The Hobbit is one of the pre-eminent fantasy works of all time and is perfectly suited to be the inspiration for a great game,” said Mike Ryder, president of Sierra Entertainment, Inc. “The book provides a tremendous amount of rich material from which we expect to make a fantasy game that lives up to the extremely high expectations of Tolkien’s fans worldwide.”
Under its multi-year deal with Tolkien Enterprises, Sierra has exclusive rights to create video games based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary work The Hobbit.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have set the standard for fantasy writers and creators of epic worlds. The novels are massive best sellers, having sold close to 100 million copies worldwide and been translated into 26 different languages. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the subject of three movies being created by New Line Cinema, the first of which, The Fellowship of the Ring, was released on December 19, 2001 and is one of the hottest movies of 2001/2002.
ABOUT INEVITABLE ENTERTAINMENT
Inevitable Entertainment Inc., http://www.inevitable.com, is a cutting edge video game development studio based in Austin, Texas. Inevitable was founded in March, 2000 by top ex-management personnel from Iguana Entertainment and prides itself on creating AAA titles for the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft XBox, and Nintendo GameCube.
ABOUT SIERRA
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. http://www.sierra.com, a studio of Vivendi Universal Publishing and part of its Games division, is one of the original developers and largest worldwide publishers of interactive entertainment and productivity software. Sierra is renowned for releasing critically acclaimed and award winning titles that represent a wide variety of computer entertainment on both next generation console and PC platforms.
About Vivendi Universal Publishing
Vivendi Universal Publishing (VU Publishing), the publishing division of the world’s second largest communications group (Vivendi Universal), is an international leader in multi-platform publishing and content distribution. As one of the top three players in the global publishing market and the only publisher with an international reach, the Company’s key content areas include literature, reference, education, games and consumer press. VU Publishing publishes content in four major languages, including English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and has strong local publishing brands, including Anaya, Atica, Houghton Mifflin, Knowledge Adventure, Larousse, Nathan and Scipione. In the games category, VU Publishing is a leading publisher of online, PC and console-based games. Its studios include Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, Inc. and Universal Interactive.
