RuneScape CEO: We want to be bigger than World of Warcraft

What the report says

Listen now on Apple, Spotify or YouTubeIn This Edition,Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy on…Taking on World of WarcraftOld School’s surprising fanbaseThe ‘pain’ of changing monetizationThe console opportunityWinning ChinaThere’s a complaint on the RuneScape subreddit about a graphical bug.There’s a fence that has impaled the edge of a barrel. It’s a pretty minor issue. Nevertheless, one person on that subreddit has made it their mission to get it fixed.“He made a post every day saying: ‘Day 112 of waiting for this barrel to be fixed,’” says Jagex CEO Jon Bellamy.“So, I sat with one of the lead designers and I asked, ‘Look, I’ve seen this Reddit post for the last 129 days.

Are we going to do something?’ And he said, ‘What if we moved it further into the fence?’ I said, ‘That’s such a good idea.’ We then spent about a half a year moving it an inch further into the fence every day, and this guy responded every day with ‘day 400 of waiting for this stupid barrel thing to be over’.“Now it is out of the fence with a hole where the fence was, leaking water forevermore. I think that playfulness is really who we are at our best. It makes this place turn over.

It makes players happy.”I enjoyed that story. Not only does it showcase the distinctive British whimsy that’s made RuneScape famous, but it also highlights how engaged Bellamy is with the franchise. He’s on the subreddits, he’s religiously playing the game (he was fishing in Old School RuneScape before our interview), and he’s at all the events (signing babies!).And Jagex is RuneScape. There’s no other IP. No third-party publishing. It’s rebranded itself as Jagex: The RuneScape Company, and sold off its one non-RuneScape game, Scum, alongside its developer, Gamepires, to fellow UK studio Splash Damage.“Never say never,” Bellamy says.

Key details

“But I have no intention of going beyond RuneScape with this business.“Our team size is less because we have fewer studios and products, but focus is through the roof. It’s really liberating to be able to do one thing better than anybody else in the world.”“It’s really liberating to do one thing better than anybody else in the world”That focus has manifested itself into three goals: Turn around its declining RuneScape MMO, invest heavily in the successful Old School RuneScape product, and fully release the survival game RuneScape: Dragonwilds.We spoke to Bellamy about all this at Jagex’s offices in Cambridge, UK.

And you can watch the full interview above (it’s a good one). Or check out the selected highlights below.Sponsor MessageWehype – Empowering Games and Creators to Grow TogetherWehype is the cutting-edge creator marketing platform for games and leaders in the industry for 10 years. Our platform covers everything from building and executing strategic campaigns, support-a-creator programs, community rewards, data and intelligence, ongoing live service support, sentiment analysis and more. We’ve powered campaigns for the largest games and publishers in the world, supporting partners such as EA, Supercell, IO Interactive and ArenaNet throughout the entire game lifecycle - including mass-scale launches activating tens of thousands of content creators annually.Beyond launches, we solve the hard problems: keeping creators engaged, preventing creator migration, and enabling creator commerce: turning creator content into direct game and in-game sales.

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“We’re number one. There’s a big old gap between us and number one, but if we get it right, we know we can make headway. It’s lofty and ambitious, but if you’re going to set lofty and ambitious goals, why not swing for the top? So, that’s the number one goal.”RuneScape monetization changes have stopped the decline (but it’s been painful)Last year, Jagex changed how it monetizes RuneScape.