No comment from Codemasters on Warner Bros. buyout rumors

by William Dobson Jun 24th 2009 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Jumpgate Evolution, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO industry, Rumors

GamesIndustry.biz recently reached out to Codemasters, publisher of the European version of Lord of the Rings Online and the upcoming Jumpgate Evolution, for their comment on a rumor that Warner Bros. may be getting ready to buy them out. The rumor was first seen at VG247 (warning: link contains colorful but entertaining language) and it claims that Warner has "completed due diligence and buyout discussions are ongoing". This prompted GI.biz to seek clarification from Codemasters.

Their reply? "We won't respond to that story. Everything is fine here." Ok, so sometimes 'no comment' does just mean 'no comment', but it certainly doesn't close the book on the whole rumor situation with any conviction. Warner Bros. didn't return GI.biz's calls (yet) so there's no confirmation to be had from them either. It looks like we might just have to wait and see if anything actually eventuates -- or for more insider leaks perhaps.

Tags: business, buyout, codemasters, jumpgate-evolution, lord-of-the-rings-online, lotro, rumor, warner-bros

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Lateris said on 10:10AM 6-24-2009

Does turbine have anything to do with codemasters in terms of how this would hit turbine for LOTRO? Meaning- how does this effect turbine?

JP said on 10:16AM 6-24-2009

Interesting.

You know, the Comm Manager just released their resignation as of 7/1/09.

Usually a buy-out or the like will end up with a few staff shake ups. Could have some merit to this rumor.

I hope WB pumps some of that money into the dev team and gets JGE into position to release soon.

Jack said on 10:59AM 6-24-2009

Anything that let us get rid of the current codemasters is a plus! This name now stands for Crappy services and crappy games unless they did buy the rights from people like turbine ;)