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In This Edition
Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy on…
- Changing monetisation
- Old School RuneScape’s integrity
- The RuneScape Dragonwilds shadow drop
- Secret Jagex hit Scum
Jagex is determined to restore its flagship RuneScape game, even if it hurts the bottom line.
The UK developer behind the 25-year-old MMO is running a series of monetization experiments in a bid to win back fans who had become disenfranchised with the title.
Speaking to The Game Business at Gamescom, new CEO Jon Bellamy said that the troubles started back in 2013 with the launch of RuneScape 3.
“There was a new monetization model that got rolled out, the one we're all familiar with today,” he tells us. “The visual identity of that game had been changing for a little while. And many of our players started to feel like they were missing the game of old.”
The situation prompted Jagex to release Old School RuneScape, which is based on an older version of the title.
“I’m a big believer in strengthening your strengths rather than strengthening what you might feel to be weaknesses”
“Some of the challenges that that led to the creation of Old School RuneScape still exist in one form or another inside of RuneScape 3,” Bellamy acknowledges. “So, the team have been looking at the way the product currently is, the happiness of players, where they're finding frustration… if we believe this game has another 25 years, what do we need to change? And monetization is near the top of that list.
He continues: “We saw in [our] surveys, that if we could wind back some of the microtransaction approach that we're doing, or augment it to make it more sustainable and healthier, then there were many people who were saying ‘look, I’d be interested in coming back to RuneScape 3. It’s a game I view very fondly and I have a lot of nostalgia for, but that really pushed me away’.
“We've been running experiments for the last few weeks. Treasure hunter is our microtransaction layer, and we did the total removal of that temporarily. That hasn't been done since it was implemented in 2012. We really decided to not just ask players, but also make changes in game to see what the results are. The team have been learning for the last three or four weeks so that we can put some substance behind our own assumptions.”
Whatever changes come as a result of these experiments, Bellamy admits it will likely impact revenue.
“We probably won't maintain the revenue that we currently are when we make these changes. That's the truth. But equally, if we're taking a 10 or 15 or 25-year view, some short-term pain is probably worth the restoration of the game if we can get to that point.”
The Old School
RuneScape 3 may be facing challenges, but the same isn’t true for Old School RuneScape. Old School has become Jagex’s leading title, and even surpassed 240,000 players online last month, a new record for the nearly 13 year-old game.
Jagex approaches Old School RuneScape with extreme caution. There are no microtransactions in the game, and the developer will only make changes or updates if 70% of players agree to it.
“We have some really clear lines in the sand that we would never transgress with Old School RuneScape,” Bellamy says. “No microtransactions ever, and a whole host of other clear rules. It's tough sometimes to accept that content we really want to make isn't the stuff that's desired. But it's proven to be quite successful in the long run.”
He continues: “Old School’s a game that is swimming and integrity, and integrity is really desirable, especially today. With RuneScape 3, what we are looking at is also much about integrity. So visual integrity, monetization integrity, and integrity of gameplay. And if we put that right at the core of what we're doing, much as we have for Old School RuneScape, it will manifest in a different way for RuneScape 3.”
Enter Dragonwilds
The firm added to its RuneScape library with RuneScape Dragonwilds back in April. It’s a survival game that received a surprise Early Access launch in April, and Bellamy says that was partially done to manage expectations.
“What we didn't want to do is create a bunch of hype and fanfare, set expectations really high for a group of people that already have very high expectations coming from RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, and then let people down,” he says.
“We wanted to make sure we were sensible and humble in the way that we launched it. It's done tremendously well, nonetheless, but when we do full content launch next year, you'll see a lot more fanfare, and excitement, because we've got a fuller product that we can ship and start committing to frequent updates on.
“It’s done much better than we anticipated. We had some very high-end goals and it surpassed those at Early Access. The team's in a really good place. You can see now there's a bunch of RuneScape players saying, ‘I would love to see more and more and more in the product’. We're furiously developing, we're actively hiring into that team, and trying to build out the pipeline of content. But the first priority is committing to delivering everything we've already promised.”
Jagex’s forgotten game
When I met up with Jagex at GDC, the firm showed me a game that was just exiting Early Access called Scum. It’s a super hardcore survival game made by Croatian game developer Gamepires, which Jagex acquired in 2019. However, Scum is very much an exception to the current RuneScape-focused strategy.
“I’m a big believer in strengthening your strengths rather than strengthening what you might feel to be weaknesses,” Bellamy says. “The French make wine, the Germans make cars and Jagex makes RuneScape, and that's exactly where I would like us to be for the next five or so years.
“Scum is a great game being built by a team that has a ton of autonomy, because it is very different to the games that Jagex is known for. The worst thing we could do is go and impress upon that team that we know how best to make a hardcore shooter.”
Indeed, Jagex isn’t planning on any wild pivots or shifts. This is a company fully focused on its flagship IP.
“[In five years], I would like Old School RuneScape, RuneScape 3 and Dragonwilds, as a collective RuneScape franchise to be… if not the biggest, but then clearly the second biggest MMO franchise in the Western world,” Bellamy concludes. “We’re already very close to that position. It's one of those things that surprises people quite frequently.
“We've established where we want to be. We're already pushing towards it. And the growth, at least for Old School RuneScape over the last few months, has been amazing. We don't plan on doing big acquisitions necessarily, or spinning up large scale new projects… the focus is on doing what we already do, but making 1%, 2%, 3% improvements across a hundred different places every year for the next five years.”
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