This Persistent Life #4

We talk to Jagex's Andrew Gower about the phenomenally successful browser MMO RuneScape.

Though World of Warcraft and Second Life seem to get all the ink when it comes to virtual-worlds, there is a quiet revolution steadily smoldering into something big just a few frequencies away. "Casual MMOs"--a category that in many ways defies strict definition--may just be what people in the future remember about this period in gaming. Indeed, the day might soon come when glossy high-budget MMOs are just a small piece of the virtual-world pie.

Whatever ends up being the case, there's a good chance that Jagex, the company responsible for RuneScape, will be at the forefront. RuneScape has numbers that any MMO publisher would kill for--a total of ten million registered accounts, broken down to nine million free, and one million paid. That's a lot of eyes. One gets the impression that the impact of this is yet to dawn on the industry. We recently had a chance to sit down with Jagex's Andrew Gower and talk about RuneScape, and the future of the MMO market.

If there were a single element to which you attribute RuneScape's massive success, what would it be?

I don't think there is any single element that can be attributed to the success of the game. I think it is a combination of multiple different factors. If I had to pick one thing, it would be the weekly updates--we are constantly updating, adding to and improving the game. If you look at the game now and compare it to five years ago is has come a very long way and it is continually progressing and getting better. I think this commitment is important because it gives something for the players to look forward to, RuneScape is never standing still. Secondly it means the game is continually expanding and hopefully staying ahead of the demands of our gamers. There are always different challenges and new features, whether they are quests or new skills or areas of the game to visit. It means the game never really ends, and our players can't run out of new things to do.

Are you surprised that the game has become as popular as it is?

I never originally dreamed that RuneScape would become as big as it has. When I first started out it was just me and my brothers working on the game and I never expected anything like this number of players. However when we launched it and we had a few hundred gamers playing at once within the first week we were amazed, and aware of the demand for a game like this. Now that we have a huge company with 300 people working on development and support of the game, it is less of a surprise that it continues to grow because of the massive resources we are putting in to making it a great gaming experience.

It's perhaps less unusual to see a game like RuneScape emerge as hit in the Asian market. Why do you think Jagex was able to achieve this level of success in the West?

Firstly, I think because we are based in the UK so everything we do has a western style of story telling and RuneScape has a certain sense of humor that appeals to Western cultures. Secondly, Europe is steeped in myths and legends of knights, feats of bravery, and in Britain even fighting dragons, so there is a long tradition of people here working on medieval story lines, which appeals to our audience.

Could you talk about your relationship with WildTangent? What is the nature of it, and how will it evolve as RuneScape continues to grow?

Our relationship with WildTangent is a relatively recent in terms of the lifetime of the product, it's an advertising relationship. Advertising is important to us as it allows us to support the free version of the game. Originally the game was entirely funded by advertising before we introduced the subscription service which has allowed us to invest in the continual improvements and regular updates that make the game so compelling.

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