Gamers to Assume Role of Bilbo Baggins in His Epic Adventure

BELLEVUE, Wash., Feb. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Sierra Entertainment, Inc., a studio of Vivendi Universal Publishing, today announced development of ``The Hobbit,'' a videogame based on J.R.R. Tolkien's worldwide best-selling novel. The game is due to be released in 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube.

``The Hobbit,'' developed by Austin, Texas-based Inevitable Entertainment, is a third-person action/adventure game set in the world of Middle-Earth. In the game, players take the persona of Bilbo Baggins, an unassuming hobbit who has been unwittingly thrust into an epic adventure. ``Bringing the epic worlds described in Tolkien's works to life through a video game has been an amazing experience,'' said Russell Byrd, managing director at Inevitable Entertainment.

``The Hobbit is one of the pre-eminent fantasy works of all time and is perfectly suited to be the inspiration for a great game,'' said Mike Ryder, president of Sierra Entertainment, Inc. ``The book provides a tremendous amount of rich material from which we expect to make a fantasy game that lives up to the extremely high expectations of Tolkien's fans worldwide.''

Under its multi-year deal with Tolkien Enterprises, Sierra has exclusive rights to create video games based on J.R.R. Tolkien's literary work The Hobbit.

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have set the standard for fantasy writers and creators of epic worlds. The novels are massive best sellers, having sold close to 100 million copies worldwide and been translated into 26 different languages. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is the subject of three movies being created by New Line Cinema, the first of which, The Fellowship of the Ring, was released on December 19, 2001 and is one of the hottest movies of 2001/2002.