Variety.com reports that rights to create games based on The Lord of the Rings movies have quietly reverted from EA to Warner Bros. as of the end of last year. The last game released by EA under the deal was The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, and the story speculates that the quality of Pandemic's action game may have suffered in the rush to get it out the door before the deal (which was stretched by couple of weeks to allow Conquest's January release) expired. They also offer speculation that Warner will not license out the property again, but rather will take development of the franchise in-house for future games. The rights to make games based on The Lord of the Rings books is a separate license, held by the Tolkien estate.