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Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) 
announced this week that it has been granted the rights to develop games based on J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings."
EA has been developing games based on New Line Cinema's theatrical productions of "The Lord of the Rings" since 2001. The new deal expands EA's rights to the books' additional plot and character details not included in the movie trilogy.
The company also revealed details of two new games in the "The Lord of the Rings" series: "The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II" for the PC, and "The Lord of the Rings Tactics" (working title) for Sony's (NYSE: SNE) PlayStation Portable system.
With the new games, fans will be able to step into a world that "looks like the films, but experience characters, environments and battles that have been inspired by the books," said a statement released by EA this week.
"Now that we are expanding our 'Lord of the Rings' universe to encompass Tolkien's books, we'll be able to combine the visual impact of the films with those complex stories," said Steve Gray, Executive Producer of "The Lord of the Rings Tactics" at EA.
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