Two lost mystery licenses = hurt for Midway.

Midway Games, the traditional console publisher, recently announced that they will stop publishing games for two IPs in it's portfolio, one internally and the other externally developed. Which two IPs those are, they were less forthcoming about. Regardless - the loss of those two IPs will double Midway's projected quarterly losses, a situation that doesn't look so good for Midway. So, if they're a console publisher, why should you care? Because they also publish Lord of the Rings Online.

In the US, Midway also publishes the Lord of the Rings Online massively multiplayer online role-playing game, developed by Turbine Software. (European publishing duties are handled by Codemasters.) It has signed on to distribute LOTRO's forthcoming Mines of Moria expansion pack, due out November 18. However, since Lord of the Rings Online isn't a console game and Midway didn't agree to publish it until 2006--as the console generation was transitioning--it is unclear if it falls under the rep's rubric.

As the quote says, Midway will be publishing LotRO at least through the Mines of Moria launch, but we'll keep our eyes peeled to see if that will remain the case for later.

For more information (and a lot of financial math), please check here.