Amazon's Lord of the Rings MMO dev on LOTRO: "The industry moves on"

gamesradar.com:

A developer working on Amazon's recently announced The Lord of the Rings MMO has said there's room for both its upcoming game and The Lord of the Rings Online to "co-exist", even if "the industry moves on" from the old.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz (opens in new tab), vice president of Amazon Games Christoph Hartmann discusses concerns about the company's new Lord of the Rings MMO competing with the already established Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) game, which launched in 2007 and is currently being worked on by Standing Stone Games. 

When asked if LOTRO affects the potential for Amazon Games' own title, Hartmann responded: "Not at all. First of all, I have a lot of respect for them to keep it going that long." The developer continues, "They have a, not huge, but a very dedicated fanbase. But looking just at the technology, where we're at now, and where we will be in a couple of years, it's just worlds apart."

Hartmann then compares the difference in technology between the two games to the likes of black and white and in color movies: "It's a little exaggeration if I say it's going to be like black and white movies to color, but that's the approach I want to take. It's just a completely different world."

"I think they actually can co-exist," Hartmann adds, "Even the most likely scenario is for people just to move over because the other one is an old game. It's not a bad game, but the industry moves on at some point, and it's a long time from their release to ours."

In case you missed the news, on May 15, Amazon and Embracer Group announced that it was working together to develop a Lord of the Rings MMO for PC and consoles via Amazon Games. 

You may remember that the company previously released an MMO in the