Following the success of Turbine's The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar MMORPG, Tolkien Enterprises has decided to extend the license to create games based on The Lord of the Rings series until 2014. If you want to know more, be sure to head on over to the full article by clicking on the "read more" link below.

This next article is about prestige games. While we were quite sure already what point we would like to drive at, we wanted to be sure. So we went to our mini library, picked up a Webster's and looked up the meaning of the word.

Prestige: reputation or influence arising from success, achievement, rank, or other favorable attributes; distinction or reputation attaching to a person or thing and thus possessing a cachet for others or for the public.

Before we proceed, pardon us first this bit of explanation: In the movie industry, prestige films are those that are not expected to do blockbuster numbers but brings pride to those who are part of it. They are funded by various studios and actors are asked to accept lower rates. Book publishers likewise, also support books that are award-worthy but not necessarily top sellers. Both of these art forms gained prestige, so to speak, because of their favorable attributes (read: content).

Now, here comes the serious question: Why are there no prestige titles? The problem, unfortunately, lies in the big companies' metric of success. For them, a game is successful whenever it brings high revenues.

Reviews are important only before and during a game's first weeks in the market. In the event that sales wouldn't pick up, they abandon the title. Abandon, in the sense that they try to distance themselves from it. You don't believe us? Look at these:

• Capcom dissolves Clover Studios because of disappointing sales for their last project. The latter's last project happened to be Okami, a title that received high reviews and commendations across the industry.
• Last year, Microsoft dropped Psychonauts because of being unpopular. The game was then picked up by a much smaller company, Majesco.
• UbiSoft released Beyond Good and Evil. It was supposed to be a series. But because of disappointing sales, the planned series was dropped all together.

These are just the recent things that readily comes to mind. Given the time, we are sure we'll be able to find a lot of other similar cases out there. A good number of excellent titles but because of economic reasons, are lying at the bottom of the heap, dusty and forgotten.

The solution, as easy and as naive as it sounds, lies in inner values. Until the day publishers and developers take pride in content rather than revenues, things wouldn't change. And until the day the triumvirate (giants Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft ) takes the industry into this direction, it would remain an unpaved and crooked road for prestige titles.