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Jagex's Browser game makes as much as wow
Gabby-air
Member UncommonPosts: 3,440
"Jagex reckons that RuneScape makes "possibly" as much money as World of Warcraft, and is officially "the world's biggest free game".
"More than 10 million [people play RuneScape]," Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard told Eurogamer. "[But] It depends if you're taking a day, a week, three months. We did another stat for the Guinness Book of World Records that was total active unique [users] over time, and that was just over 105 million. So 105 million people have touched it."
"An honest answer is we don't measure the success of the business based on financial returns," he said. "The company is very strong financially, and it is thanks to RuneScape, but for us it's all about active players. It doesn't matter to us really if they're free or paying for the expansion - as long as it's going north we really don't care."
RuneScape has been around for nine years, and has around "a million lines of scripted content", which Gerhard believes classes the free-to-play MMO as "an epic game". Even now, Jagex updates the MMO weekly with fresh content, and that hefty backlog is "the only reason why RuneScape is always ahead of the curve", designer Henrique Olifiers chimed in.
RuneScape was completely free for almost four years and supported by adverts, but financial pressure eventually forced Jagex to introduce an optional "premium content kind of thing", he said, that could have swung either way. Luckily, Jagex did well out of it. "Overnight 20 per cent of our players just switched." Gerhard revealed that that percentage of paying customers remains the same today.
"But we're very, very conscious that every game has to be completely free: no demo, no trial - it's a completely free game. If you like it, if you want more, then there's the expansion pack too," said Gerhard.
Jagex now employs a whopping 400 people across two Cambridge studios (and one London branch), and puts them to work on RuneScape, casual portal FunOrb and new sci-fi MMO MechScape. The latter has had tens of millions of pounds of investment and is nearly ready to be unveiled."
Taken from Euro gamer, Runescape was my first MMORPG and it was like how UO is for others. It was simply the most fun i ever had in my life but seems like this game is looked down alot on these forums but oh well. The developers are now making another game codename Mechscape, its a sci-fi game with no exp or levels "something totally different" and is aimed at a older audience, What are your thoughts on this?
Comments
I've tried so many times to like this game. I like the skill system, I like the crafting but other than that the graphics and combat blow so hard I can't stay in the game more than 30 minutes at a time.
I would rather go back and play the original NWN.
Playing: WoW, EvE
Interested in: TOR, ER, GW2, WoD, Dust514
Hmm.... i can't say I believe this, certainly not because the dev's say so.
I personally know a lot of people who play MMO's, and not one of them plays Runescape. Not young players nor older, so who is the target audience? No one in my world, that's for sure.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Well it is the guinness world book for the most popular free game so can't say there lying, and to the other poster yes i agree on the combat part, i guess you can't have everything but on the higher end the combat was actually quite fun.
To see the target audience of runescape one just needs to go to the library and see who is logged on to it on the public computers.
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
20% of their 10 million players pay the alternate subscription of $5.00 = $ million per month.
WoW generates far more than that with US subscriptions alone, nevermind the $ made on subs in other countries and the pay-per-hour fees generated in Asian markets.
The claim that they make more $ befuddles me
__________________________
Malianea
World's biggest free game? FarmVille had 33 million active users last month alone. Significantly more than the 10 mill Runescape claims, and it wouldn't surprise me if they're total unique active user count was around the same as the Guiness record too.
...unless they mean the other definition of "big" (game world size :P )
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There free members see advertisements and when there's 9 million of them, alot of revenue is generated from there. As for only 1mil people paying sub, im not really sure last time i checked it was about 1.5+ and i don't they have to pay as much money on technical stuff which wow has to since it runs on a browser. Again this isn't me who put up the facts, i just copied what it said on Eurogamer. Also to the above poster, is that even a mmorpg?
I can honestly say that out of all the mmorpgs ive played so far...runescape is the best. There is only a few things wrong with it, races, classes, the duel arena and the community. However what makes it good is the company actually knows what they are doing. Take Godswar for example. Igg thought it was soooo good to add a bot system so nobody does anything where as in runescape the players actually have to try. And as stated before, jagex keeps everything fair. Whether you are a multi billionaire or a homeless guy with access to an internet cafe, you have the same chance to be great.
Nowadays it seems that its a MUST to have an item mall of some sort in mmorpgs or where you have to spend real money for a special currency which makes you better than anyone else. the more money you spend the better you will always be than the free players. In runescape if you want to play free and still have a chance there are servers for that. If you want to spend a little money for better things yet not have to have a spending war to be the best, then they have servers for that.
It seems in modern mmorpgs its just a spending war to be the best.
are runescape graphics the crappiest? yes
however they have the best ethics of any mmorpg made today and they actually care about your suggestions.
I played this for a little bit, good if you don't want to install a MMO on someone's PC. But pulling the same cash as WoW.......oh pulllease.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I used to play this game a lot in middle-school. Almost every single person I know has played this game at least once. I like the leveling and crafting a ton. The combat I don't really care if it's intuitive or not. It's somehow fun to see larger and larger numbers fly up as you level. As for graphics. It's done as much as I can expect from a browser-based game running 3-D.
Time to get owned in pink letters...
Do any of you any understand how advertising works? When you go to a site where you get pop up ads or site ads each time that ad shows up X company has to pay X amount. Under some circumstances X company only pays X amount of times per day for each unique user. So if they have 1.5 million people paying 5.00 bucks thats actually where they make less money but it generates a stable, expected revenue to base off of. Secondly the type of hardware and servers used to house RuneScape are farrrrrrrrr cheaper than WOW.
Back to Advertisement information. So if 105 million unqiue users saw each of the possible 10 ads in a given day of their activity they company made say .10 per view... now if those people logged in every day of the month or even 4 days a week which are the general playing times of MMO gamers and each time they see the add .10 ... do the math and go back to school. Stop rolling on WoWs electronic testicles.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
www.mechscapeworld.com/forums/index.php
Jagerx's revenue for 2008 45Million, advertising represents 7% of their total revenue
www.gamespot.com/news/6185347.html
Blizzard's revenue for 2007 before they merged with Activision, 1.2Billion
The companies are not in the same league
thats Blizzard... not WoW... the single game.,.. and now start subtracting the yearly salaries of all of its employee's, the costs of all of it's offices, electronics, and bills. This discussion was over WOW and RuneScape not Blizzard vs Runescape... l2r
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
The game is great, no doubt, I played all the way up to the point where I had to move.
/sarcasm
PAST: UO-SWG-DAOC-WOW-DDO-VG-AOC-WAR-FE-DFO-LOTRO-RIFT-GW2
PRESENT: Nothing
FUTURE: ESO
It was my first and I still resort back to it from time to time...regardless of its official status there is no denying its popular and must be appealing to someone (thats evident upon logging in)...there are always people on..the game itself was always fun to me
I AM like the wind!
Total blizzard upkeep expendatures for WOW 2004 - 2008 200M
www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/09/total-operating/
Blizzard makes more profit from WOW each month then Runescape makes in a year.
thats Blizzard... not WoW... the single game.,.. and now start subtracting the yearly salaries of all of its employee's, the costs of all of it's offices, electronics, and bills. This discussion was over WOW and RuneScape not Blizzard vs Runescape... l2r
WoW by itself does make more than $1 billion a year. WoW makes more than $100 million a month.
Learn to research.
people keep knockin' runescape cause it has shitty graphics and is for kids. oh wait that also describes WoW. and one is a failboat, the other isn't.
They should've specified: It's the world's biggest browser based free MMO. If you're going to make the argument that FarmVille is an MMO, I'm going to laugh.
thats Blizzard... not WoW... the single game.,.. and now start subtracting the yearly salaries of all of its employee's, the costs of all of it's offices, electronics, and bills. This discussion was over WOW and RuneScape not Blizzard vs Runescape... l2r
Seems you need a lesson in how to cook crow.......maybe they would taste better with p i n k l e t t e r s.........
enjoy
See Kdkirmse's and Xiaoki's post for references.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
thats Blizzard... not WoW... the single game.,.. and now start subtracting the yearly salaries of all of its employee's, the costs of all of it's offices, electronics, and bills. This discussion was over WOW and RuneScape not Blizzard vs Runescape... l2r
WoW by itself does make more than $1 billion a year. WoW makes more than $100 million a month.
Learn to research.
You first
http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/08/05/activision-blizzard-has-solid-financial-results-lowers-2009-rev/
it made 1 billion in a quarter with activision and only over 100 mill is profit... much lower than the guy above was saying... l2r when you research. Still above Runescape a FREE GAME but its blizzard... they are like the EA sports of MMO's and they only have 1....
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
Check the stock exchange.......
They should've specified: It's the world's biggest browser based free MMO. If you're going to make the argument that FarmVille is an MMO, I'm going to laugh.
Kinda like the world's biggest browser based free MMO that includes a ninja class and a racer car driver class, goes to Free Realms.....wow playing the specific game is easy.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
I used to play Runescape and Ive known quite a few people who have played the game as well. HEH my cousin is playing the game currently cuz he got bored of WoW. I started playing it because I didn't have a computer that was able to play EQ at the time. It sucked I was watching all my friends play UO and EQ but I had to play something and RS was the only game I could play.
Further research of Jagex shows that they do not release any financial records and appears to be player oriented speculation on their profits or w/e. Now if the one guy from Jagex said they make as much as WoW Blizzard as an entity with Activision will make maybe 770 million profit this year and WoW i'd presume is a large chunk of that as Blizzard itself doesn't release any honest figures about their costs as they said 200 mil for 4 years of operation but they clearly use much more as displayed by their quartly statement profits. So i'd say Jagex is wrong and WoW makes a lot more but under that some note all this 1 billion talk is outrageous and I stand by my previous statement ... Stop rolling on WoW's electronics testicles.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
