Simple question: How much do you love The Hobbit? Let’s say a little. How much do you love free shit? Oh, you dig that a lot, huh? Okay, how about not one but two, YES TWO, free-to-play games based on The Hobbit?!

I lost you all, didn’t I. Not that I can necessarily blame you all. The notion of getting onboard the free-to-play bandwagon feels outright skeezy at this point. I mean, seriously, they’re free-to-play. What goodness could ever come out of such madness? According to some of my friends, quite a lot. See a bunch of them have been playing Gotham City Imposters for free on Steam and they’re telling me, as far as free games go, that it ain’t half bad. They might be crazy but dammit, maybe they’ve just gotten over the stigma of those horrible FTP games that are more ‘free to start, pay to finish’ and found something worthwhile.

But back to the point, developer Kabam has joined forces with mega-giant Warner Bros. Interactive to produce The Kingdoms of Middle Earth for mobile devices and Armies of the Third Age for web browsers. Both games will be based on film director Peter Jackson’s upcoming trilogy of films based on the popular book The Hobbit, which all geeks should recognize as the precursor to The Lord of the Rings.

The Hobbit films are among the most anticipated entertainment launches of all time[.] Kabam’s unique ability to blend the art of game design and the science of free-to-play distribution makes us a natural fit to partner with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to deliver thrilling games via the Web and mobile devices for The Hobbit film fans around the world.

–Kevin Chou, CEO of Kabam

Sounds interesting at least. You can sign up to be part of the beta for Armies of the Third Age here.