Jagex Financial Report 2008-09

[Phrost]

And I find myself wishing that Jagex was publicly traded... though that's another discussion all in itself.

indeed!

 

a couple of things though -

who or what is insight venture? I'm presuming you know, me

 

also, I was checking traffic yesterday just wondering how things were going

 

 

I'm sure it can't mean much if they are still raking in the cash but maybe it means there are less new players coming onboard?

Insight Venture is a VCI group. In other words, the group invests in capital and private equity and their goal is to make a profit. Based on the owners graph posted earlier in this thread you can tell that Jagex is a privately held company and is not on the stock market, thus making it impossible to own any shares unless you are part of the Insight Venture group. I'll add a source about Jagex being privately held company just in case (click)

 

Yes, this is totally true, evry 1 of my friends who used to play RuneScape and now see's it is like "Wow, it looks so good now".

I agree, I was one of those who played Runescape Classic and retired when the initial game engine upgrade was released. However, I came back when I saw another mate of mine playing RS on high definition. I even asked him which game he was playing as I obviously didn't recognize it being Runescape. Needless to say that I began playing again.

 

The game has gone a long way since then and now actually looks like a game. I'm sure Jagex marketing department has already looken into the possibility of tv advertising. Probably just a matter of time until we see it on our screens.

[bored321]

cool, thanks for the update.

[Nurse_Renard]

Very intresting charts as usual, thanks.

 

Also, I think Jagex should attempt TV advertsing, or at least some form of advertising.

 

(BTW, they did actually advertise in the British gamer Magazine "Gamemaster" They gave away free 1-week membership cards, and had a little feature on RS inside the magazine, as well as having an advert in the previous issue consisiting of a large image of Zilayana and a bunch of screenies at the bottom)

[langer]

These posts by Ren are always very interesting.

 

What strikes me the most is the revenue from ads has stagnated a lot and it's share of turnover is slightly lower than 6%. I'll be sure to report that fact anytime an F2Per claims that they support the game as much as members.

[me]

What strikes me the most is the revenue from ads has stagnated a lot and it's share of turnover is slightly lower than 6%. I'll be sure to report that fact anytime an F2Per claims that they support the game as much as members.

Revenue from advertising is £2.1m for 2008-09 which is down from £2.2m for 2007-08. While this is a fall, it's still much higher than 2003-04 when it was only £171,027 from ad revenue (although of course associated costs would've been lower back then). The best quote I can think of on this matter is from Andrew Gower in 2007: "With the free version, we basically break even, but of course this version is very important to us as it brings in new players and introduces more people to the game" (source).

[me]

Mark Gerhard discussed this thread (well the version over at MechScape world) during the RuneScape Q&A (QF 13-14-745-60279545 page 2).

Q) Bonziiznob

Thank you Mark for your time.

 

1) According to Jagex’s Financial Overview (as provided by MechScape World), your dividends are down. Is this at all related to the MechScape Project?

 

2) Your donations for the last fiscal year were approx. £192,000. Where do your receive your donations and how would one interested in donating do so?

 

3) Who or what is Insight Venture?

 

4) Your last forum contributions mentioned a conference for players to meet all Jagex employees. How is this progressing? (I’d love to attend, but I need advanced warning to plan my trip to Cambridge)

 

5) Can you explain a bit why Jagex is making an addition to include Flash (War of Legends and it’s affiliates), and how this might change the course of Jagex’s future developments?

 

~ Bonzi

-----------------------

A) Hi Bonzi,

1) Jagex is stronger than every, our dividends are down because we are investing more than ever in new games, R&D and our talent namely the Jagex team.

 

2)this doesn't relate to to donations we received but rather donations we have made to various local charities over the course of the year.

 

4)We are making really good progress on the fan celebration.

 

5)Jagex is looking to help other developers with good games launch their games online, I suspect we will look to work with even more developers in a similar fashion over the coming years.

 

(Feel free to merge this with the post above)

[xxshady]

^ Lol I love how he completely ignored the Insight Venture question. Why is he afraid to admit that Jagex received venture capitalist funding? A lot of tech startups receive VC funding...

[Drakolord7]

Jagex has already admitted that the new player numbers have stagnated. Mod Kelvin said so in the community management interview he did on a podcast. That's why we have been seeing updates for the starting area - beginning quests, tutorial update, etc. They are trying to get new gamers into Runescape.

 

I'm also sort of worried that so many people were leaving Jagex. I check the Jagex Vacancies list every week and there are always a lot of openings available. I was always impressed that Jagex was expanding their workforce by so much, but now that I know they were just replacing leavers I'm wondering why so many people are leaving Jagex. Game developers generally don't have that high of a turnover rate in terms of workers...

 

Looking at the Q&A with Gerhard, they have apparently started anoth MMO in addition to Stellar Dawn, which could explain it. Not to mention that when Mechscape was canned it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the people who worked on that left.

[xxshady]

^ Ya, I was REALLY surprised to hear that they are working on another MMO now.

 

List of Jagex productions right now:

 

1) Runescape

2) Stellar Dawn

3) Third MMO

4) Games Lab Productions (Funorb + iPhone games + standalone small titles)

5) Publisher team (working with 3rd party developers to publish their games, example: War of Legends)

 

 

Jagex is working on quite a lot nowadays. :)

[Slayer_Jesse]

I'd like to know who's still giving donations.

It's money Jagex has donated, not money donated to Jagex.

 

"As part of its ongoing commitment to good corporate citizenship, Jagex supports a range of local, national and international charities.

 

...The charities have included:

 

* Save the Children

* CAFOD

* Hamlin Churchill Childbirth Injuries Fund

* Cancer Research

* Cystic Fibrosis Trust

* The University of Pennsylvania

* Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign

* Bury Bombers Wheelchair Basketball

* SOS Children's Villages

* East Anglian Children's Hospice (EACH)

 

Jagex has also run charity auctions for signed merchandise, and, in 2008, donated artwork and prizes to the MMOCalendar, which raises funds for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, U.S.A."

 

Source: http://jagex.com/corporate/Giving_Back/charities.ws

 

I get all those, except for the university of Penn. Seems an odd choice for a British company, unless one of them is an alum. That said, I find these figures interesting. Keep on keeping us up to date :)

[me]

^ Lol I love how he completely ignored the Insight Venture question. Why is he afraid to admit that Jagex received venture capitalist funding? A lot of tech startups receive VC funding...

It is no secret so it may have just been that the person asked a number of questions and MMG decided to only answer the most interesting ones. While the press release said that Jagex secured an investment from Insight Venture Partners, I'm not sure if they actually invested any money into Jagex as opposed to just giving money to the shareholders to purchase shares. However, as members of the board I expect that they could contribute to Jagex in terms of their expertise and experience.

 

Jagex has already admitted that the new player numbers have stagnated. Mod Kelvin said so in the community management interview he did on a podcast. That's why we have been seeing updates for the starting area - beginning quests, tutorial update, etc. They are trying to get new gamers into Runescape.

 

I'm also sort of worried that so many people were leaving Jagex. I check the Jagex Vacancies list every week and there are always a lot of openings available. I was always impressed that Jagex was expanding their workforce by so much, but now that I know they were just replacing leavers I'm wondering why so many people are leaving Jagex. Game developers generally don't have that high of a turnover rate in terms of workers...

 

Looking at the Q&A with Gerhard, they have apparently started anoth MMO in addition to Stellar Dawn, which could explain it. Not to mention that when Mechscape was canned it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the people who worked on that left.

I know in 2007-08 their staff turnover was 23%, up from 9% the previous year - a lot of that possibly being due to the fact that they take on a lot of people on industrial placements and people who do customer support get better paid jobs elsewhere. The timing isn't right for the transition from MechScape to Stellar Dawn to have any relation to the staff figures, as those numbers won't be out until next year (The decision to restart the project didn't occur until August/September 2009). As far as I'm aware they've tried to retain as much of the MS staff as possible.

 

I get all those, except for the university of Penn. Seems an odd choice for a British company, unless one of them is an alum. That said, I find these figures interesting. Keep on keeping us up to date :)

Your hunch is right as one of the people from Insight is a University of Pennsylvania alumnus.

[thekooldude]

great stuff thanks for it, was interesting =]

[Range_This11]

I kinda laughed at the percent of Jagex that Ian Gower owns :lol:

Same here. Loser brother? I think so haha.

[Alphanos]

I don't normally like necro-bumping, but given certain recent events I thought this was highly relevant. My first concern upon hearing about the vote was that Jagex might be much worse off financially than I had thought, and was desperate to get more members. I was relieved to find this thread, showing that worry to be false.

[Capt_Davy]

I don't normally like necro-bumping, but given certain recent events I thought this was highly relevant. My first concern upon hearing about the vote was that Jagex might be much worse off financially than I had thought, and was desperate to get more members. I was relieved to find this thread, showing that worry to be false.

 

No. This thread shows data from 2008-2009, and [obviously, seeing the post dates] includes abo[bleep]ely nothing about 2009-2010, or anything about the past year (2010-2011). So you could say that the data you're drawing your conclusions from is nearly 2 out of date, meaning: this thread is completely irrelevant, and your conclusions drawn from old data cannot be believed.

 

EDIT: time to let this die...again -.-

[Alphanos]

I don't normally like necro-bumping, but given certain recent events I thought this was highly relevant. My first concern upon hearing about the vote was that Jagex might be much worse off financially than I had thought, and was desperate to get more members. I was relieved to find this thread, showing that worry to be false.

 

No. This thread shows data from 2008-2009, and [obviously, seeing the post dates] includes abo[bleep]ely nothing about 2009-2010, or anything about the past year (2010-2011). So you could say that the data you're drawing your conclusions from is nearly 2 out of date, meaning: this thread is completely irrelevant, and your conclusions drawn from old data cannot be believed.

 

EDIT: time to let this die...again -.-

 

According to Companies House, this thread is based upon Jagex's most recently filed financial statements. It's true they're not current, but they're the most recent information currently available.

 

Their next set of financial statements is apparently due on December 31st, so hopefully Ren will update the graphs once that information is available. Until that time it's mostly speculation, but it's very interesting to note that the elimination of old wilderness and free trade did not cause the vast financial hardship that many players seem to imagine.

 

Edit: I also noticed looking at the previously-posted Alexa traffic graphs that all of their data is only available in percentage form. In other words, from that data we don't know if the Runescape player base is eroding, or it's just a matter of more non-gamers getting online for Facebook, etc. Either could explain the results. I'd be curious to see a graph of absolute hits/day...

[Kata_Phfract__the_slayer]

congratulations!

you have eleveld up in necromancy.

:P

 

but really, although the info is a bit out of date it was a thought worth going on about. (seeing half the threads on the frount page now that apears to be saying little >.>)

 

there apears to be no major/long-term drop in the income of jagex after the 2007 update's.

but beeing a compony, thay want to not only not-make less money, but also make more money. so if this will do that (without costing the game's fun etc) i see no reson not to.

[Pete Party]

Around 30k a year for working for Jagex, reasonable.

[Will H]

This is a rare justified necro-thread, I was looking for this, thanks. If trends are anything to go by, the game should be progressing fine in terms of profits, which indicates that the Wilderness/Free Trade palava isn't some kind of last-ditch attempt at raking in profits before the ship sinks. Then again, trends don't always work out. I await the next report.

[Racer434]

Once again you have proved to be a very reliable source for all things 'Jagex'.

It is a good sight to see the profit from subscriptions to have been rising over the last two years, post Wilderness. Whether that is due to new members is unknown, as prices have gone up slightly as well as Jagex gaining new mediums in which to sell Subscriptions.

Prices haven't gone up have they? O_o

At least through traditional debit/credit card it hasn't changed from £3.50. Maybe with other payment methods it has, but that probably has more to do with the third party supplier of that method.

I know that here in Canada the price of membership via Credit card went up from $5.00 to $5.95 a couple of years ago (at least it feels that long).

 

canadas currency is inflated and devalued along with the dollar, so in euros the price is the same but in dollars (both us and Canadas) is more because now dollars<euros

[Krampell]

I wonder who Ian Grower is..

Andrews brother? His son perhaps?

[Low C]

I wonder who Ian Grower is..

Andrews brother? His son perhaps?

 

His brother, other brothers involved with the company are Mark and Paul Gower.

[Krampell]

He has a lot of brothers :D

Having a brother with a great seems to have turned out great for them.

[Danqazmlp]

This is very relevent. Most people seem to relate a falling number of players to the Anti RWT updates, however, they have no full proof. This contradicts that view with them expanding still during that year. It will be very interesting to see 09-10.

[Flodder450]

I expected a bit of a low point aroud 2007/2008,but im surprised that wasnt there :thumbup: