Assuming Jagex were to go under, which is unlikely but surely possible: what would be the fate of the game? I've been pondering it in my head a bit, and concluded that the game itself would continue, perhaps without updates or support, most likely.

inb4 not this thread again

 

OT most likely that if servers can actually be sustained

Mass exodus. Doesn't matter where, but if Jagex could no longer maintain the game, no one would bother sticking around except the bots.

There would still be people who would play, just like any other game. However, the number of players would drastically decrease.

It would become like RSC.

 

Also not this thread again.

It would become like RSC.

I've been a doomsayer for a while now - but when I say that RS will die - I'm not saying that all the servers will stop running - but that real players (esp. long time players, since pretty much NO NEW PLAYERS can get into this game now...) will stop playing the game so that there is pretty much nothing but bots/diehard loyalists remain.

 

Surprisingly, by taking the money off bots/diehard loyalists, most MMOs can last a LONG TIME before servers are ever shut. But the game is essentially dead. Unless you like wondering through a ghost game or pretending to be playing a single player game.

 

MMOs that come to these stages become but a sad husk of their former game, whispering softly of their past glory days of being the talk of the day. (sound like a vyre corpse...)

Nothing out of the ordinary, really. The playerbase would quickly leave, leaving behind the loyalists, and the servers will eventually be shut down. The game might even be open-sourced. MMOs historically end not with a bang, but with a whimper.

 

Rest assured, though, the one thing that Jagex isn't doing is losing money right now. No matter how much fun people are having proclaiming doom for the game (as they have been doing for years and years), currently it's not equating to a financial decline for Jagex and/or a reduction in the players of this game. It's going to be going for a long time yet.

I'd presume only the people who we are better off without in the community would leave. Everyone else still hasn't gotten through the vast amount of content available for them. Yeah, they'll slowly grow bored but it will be nothing over night. People that QQ about every update and continue to play will thankfully go, I'm sure. Or, would they?

depends what would happen to Jagex's intellectual assets and codebase in such a situation.

 

Depends how dramatically things went wrong.

 

They might be kept my the shareholders, they might be sold off by liquidators to whoever was prepared to pay the most.

 

Then the question would be what would the owners do.

They could

 

a)Keep the assets, but not run the game and not let anybody else do either. (Which did happen in the case of Andrew's early product- castle games domain - now owned by yahoo)

B)Run the game but don't maintain it (Which is possibly the scenario you're actually hypothesising about)

C)Run the game and provide support services

D)Run the game and provide support services and updates.

E)Let someone else administer the game for them in either style C or D

F)Release the game as Open source.

It would probably be sold to someone else. If Runescape is still profitable and there is money to be made from it, someone will pick it up.

It will probably end up like FunOrb (no staff has been working on it for almost a year) if/until it's purchased by someone else.