Warner Bros. has issued a statement confirming the removal of Lego: The Lord of the Rings and Lego: The Hobbit from digital storefronts.
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Days ago, it was noticed that the two games based on the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films had become unavailable to purchase on Steam. Their Steam Store pages still exist with information found there on the games, but the option to buy them was no longer there. Now, Warner Bros., the owners of the rights to the video games, has confirmed that the two games are both now unavailable to purchase digitally.
“Lego: The Lord of the Rings and Lego: The Hobbit will no longer be available for sale in digital stores,” a Warner Bros. representative confirmed in a statement shared with PC Gamer. “The games will remain in players’ libraries if they already own them.”
This means anyone who already owned the game via Steam or wherever else they purchased it from can still play the game like they normally would, but those who hadn’t purchased it yet through those official storefronts no longer have that option. The removal of the games came without any prior notice from Warner Bros., and the sudden delisting has served as a reminder to many of the place that physical games have in an industry that’s actively shifting towards digital products.
Again, for the back: you don’t own anything with digital. Not games. Not films. Once they’re gone, who knows when they’re back again. //t.co/sayMgkgmYQ
— Mathew Buck (@FB_BMB) January 5, 2019
And THIS is why we should fight for physical media ALWAYS. Digital is handy and convenient but when it’s gone rom those virtual shelves it’s GONE. They can’t do that with your discs. Lego Lord of the Rings games pulled from sale //t.co/GLR70H2D5m
— Eurisko 🍕 (@_Eurisko_) January 5, 2019
Other non-Lego titles based on the universe these two games share are still available, so people need not rush to buy them with concerns of those games being delisted. Other Lord of the Rings games are still available through digital stores such as Steam and the PlayStation and Xbox Stores with no evidence that they’ll be pulled from the markets, though there wasn’t much warning before the Lego games disappeared either. The removal of those two games likely had to do with expired licenses for Lego: The Lord of the Rings and Lego: the Hobbit.
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Image Courtesy of New Line Cinema -
Image Courtesy of Warner Bros.
