Quote:
Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc
In other words, where we are - where is the motivation? If somebody makes a painting related to Tolkien, because he wants to, and later gets to eventually sell it, well, good for him. If somebody purposefully makes a Tolkien-related painting only because he knows it will sell... well?
And if somebody purposefully makes a Tolkien-related gambling game (i.e. the purpose to make money is there "twice", through and through), now, what is that?
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I think part of the issue here is on the consumer's side of the equation. If I spend my money on a Tolkien-themed painting, yes, I'm out money, but in exchange for that I get... a Tolkien-themed painting. Of course I should hope that the artist did so more out of love for Tolkien than love for profit--and on the internet, it would be easy enough to check for that as a lot of current fanartists just put their stuff up on DeviantArt (and other sites) for free. But if it's a good painting, and I want to encourage someone to continue painting in that style, with that topic and those characters, I wouldn't mind spending my money and owning one of those paintings--even if it's just a print that I could have ripped for myself from the internet.
Whereas if I decide to spend my money on a Tolkien-themed slot machine, what do I get?
...Nothing, most of the time.
And sometimes, more money. Nothing whatsoever related to Tolkien except for the dinky images flashing past my eyes and inevitably ending in disappointment. Even with the rampant pre-movie commercialization hype, I could still get a cheesy-looking Burger King crown with Tengwar script on it.
Unless these slots are letting out coins with the mark of the King and the White Tree on them, this
is a new line (pun unintended) that's been crossed. (Personally, my line was when LotR and Burger King got together, as no self-respecting hobbit would eat their fries.)
But ultimately as
skip said this is up to the consumer to deal with, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of fans who were otherwise okay with the film-style commercialization at least never patronized this. I'd rather spend my fannish money on products related to the radio series or even the stage show.