In a press release on April 20, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced its acquisition of MMO publisher Turbine, "the largest privately-held online gaming studio in North America, further strengthening Warner Bros.’ position as one of the industry’s fastest growing, full-scale games publishers," according to the release. Turbine publishes two of the MMO industry's leading games; Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online. Warner Bros. president Kevin Tsujihara explained:

"Turbine is a leader in online entertainment and a strong strategic fit for Warner Bros. as we continue to broaden our games portfolio and development capabilities,” said Kevin Tsujihara, president, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. “Turbine’s renowned online game development and publishing expertise will help us develop additional online product offerings, while also providing us with new and innovative ways to market and communicate with our consumers."

Turbine CEO Jim Crowley chimes in, describing the mutual benefit of the acquisition. "We have been looking to expand access to our online worlds to more players and more markets," Crowley said in the release. "This acquisition is very exciting because it allows us to expand globally while continuing to focus on creating spectacular online games that our loyal fans and players have come to expect." Read more about the fate of Turbine's MMOs after the jump.

As the MMO industry gets stuffed with more and more competition, and World of Warcraft keeps eating that competition (kidding!), it seems that all developer eyes are now focused on new paths of innovation to reach different demographics of the gaming world. We've already seen CCP's EVE Online suck up the unemployed Math graduate demographic, SOE's Free Realms and Kingisle Entertainment's Wizard101 are both steadily converting all of our younger gamers to MMO fiends, and I'm sure between BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic and Cryptic's Star Trek Online, most sci-fi gaming fans will be mighty pleased (this could have been you, Star Wars Galaxies!).

Interestingly, however, as other MMO developers think of some great new innovations to stay in the industry, like Funcom's The Secret World and Icarus Studios' Fallen Earth, there is another barely tested demographic that bigger game companies have now set their sights on, and it goes by the name that Final Fantasy XI players have rallied against every time they hear the dreaded issue of "PS2 Limitations." What we're talking about is the console MMO and how it seems to be the trendy new thing for MMO developers.

You might remember reading about a seemingly obscure company called Worlds.com filing a patent infringement lawsuit against MMO developer NCSoft (Aion, City of Heroes, Guild Wars) last spring. It was widely covered in the video games press, and widely criticized by most community members. The suit revolves around a set of patents filed by Worlds.com back in the late-90s for its Starbright World project; a "social network" for sick and terminally-ill children.

Around the same time, Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin announced he planned to go after other major MMO publishers like Activision-Blizzard (World of Warcraft) and Linden Labs (Second Life), essentially claiming that every MMO on the market today owes Worlds.com patent infringement damages. In addition, MMO developers and publishers would have to pay Worlds.com a licensing fee to use its"interactive virtual world system" technology (more on that later).

Meanwhile, another patent troll stepped up to the plate last week, hoping to make a quick buck at the MMO industry's expense, à la Worlds.com. As we reported a few days ago, Paltalk Holdings Inc. filed suit against a handful of developers, including Turbine Inc., Activision-Blizzard and NCSoft, among others. The suit claims the MMO companies are violating its patents for its HearMe technology (an inconsequential, business-oriented "online meeting service"), which Paltalk bought the rights to in 2002. Will the MMO industry collectively stave off these lawsuits, or is this just the beginning of a multi-million dollar litigious gang bang?

Turbine announced today that M. Beau Paradowski has been appointed the company's chief financial officer. It's now his job to oversee "worldwide financial operations of Turbine and its award-winning franchises," which include Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online.

According to a press release, Paradowski has more than 17 years of experience in the financial field, and most recently served ad CFO at Optasite Inc., which was sole to SBA Communications. You can read the full announcement after the jump.

There are days when it is difficult to pull yourself away from shopping online. Be it shopping for the next computer that you have to have or the television you ultimately have to upgrade. "Keeping up with the Joneses" is a difficult, costly and time-consuming hobby. Lord of the Rings Online has done just that: they are now offering European users who refer their friends a £5 or 5 € voucher to Amazon.com. This is not available for the Americas, yet, although it may be in due time if this proves to be a successful promotion.

"This new programme allows LOTRO subscribers to receive an Amazon voucher for each friend that they successfully refer ( subject to terms and conditions )."

Lord of the Rings Online has already received awards, has numerous promotions currently active and on top of all of that, is picking up more-and-more steam against all of the other massively multiplayer games. With this, they can only hope to get larger, and that means more fun to be had by all. There is nothing more enticing than getting your friend to play, so stop dilly-dallying and get everyone you know to play with you, already!

Everyone likes free things. "Free" generally means "something you might not want to pay for anyway" but Lord of the Rings Online will give you ten free days of play. Starting recently, they have opened their servers up for those who want to try out one of the hottest massively multiplayer games on the market. If that was not enough, then try on their promotion with the gaming communication program Xfire, to offer numerous and awesome prizes to those who play at least a certain amount of hours. The more you play, the more likely you are to win, so if nothing else, give it a try and see how the time flies!

For one reason or another, sometimes we all have to stop playing a game for a time. Be that reason frustration, or simply lack of funds or even some other unforeseen variable coming into our lives, most of us have had it happen and will have it happen again. At least those Lord of the Rings Online users don't have to fret as much.

"From 2nd February until 9th February, 2009 we’re inviting all players to come back and play LOTRO. The doors will be open for former players to enter the world of Middle-earth for a week of FREE game play."

Such news means those of you who let go of Lord of the Rings Online and are currently suffering from withdrawal symptoms, you can now get your dose for free for a week! This is the sort of innovation everyone likes to see from any massively multiplayer development studio.

Source: Lord of the Rings - Europe - Forums

Yet another patch coming your way, Lord of the Rings Online players. Looks like you'll be getting a small update on Thursday; nothing too major, just some small things of note. This one looks to be a bug-fix release for the most part. There will be some moderate downtime associated with the update server-side, so prepare for a little wait. At least they are keeping up with the Jones'. We'll keep playing if you keep patching!

Souce: Lord of the Rings Online Forums

No one likes to be left out, and Dungeons and Dragons Online is no exception. Today marks the occasion of super-patch-Tuesday! The patch is faily extensive. It looks like they've fixed some things that were fairly nagging, too, so all of you D & D'ers need to check this one out!

Source: Dungeons and Dragons Online

Lord of the Rings Online keeps sweeping everyone off of their feet. Their next victim would be 1UP, where they just got voted number one in the massively multiplayer community! World of Warcraft got a close second place, with 35% of the vote. Regardless, an interesting development. That makes them winners of two large community driven contests so far. We shall see what else they shall reap!