Jagex MMG interview part 2 of 3, talking RuneScape

So MMOhub has released the second part of the MMG interview. It was truly awesome.

Especially interesting was the part where he talks about how RS is not a kids game (is it true only 4% are below 13 years old?) and he reveals that the much discussed "thirdscape" is not being made, and was originally gonna be based off one idea which will now make it into RS as a skill which will be both F2P and P2P and will introduce a whole new game mechanic :o Hopefully for release this year :thumbsup:

[hide=MMG interview about RuneScape]

Interview with Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard: Part 2 of 3, 'RuneScape' Past, Present, and Future

 

In Part 1 of our interview series with new Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard, we learned a little more about Mark's background, and how he was changing Jagex as a company. In Part 2, we talk to Mark about Jagex's most popular product -- the free-to-play MMORPG classic "RuneScape" -- and find out what we can expect to see this year, as well as his thoughts on the things people associate with the MMORPG. Is it for kids? Will the free content be improved under Mark's reign? Read to find out!

 

 

 

 

 

Brendon Lindsey, Chief Editor, MMOLife Network: When we were talking earlier you said one major thing you wanted to do involved "RuneScape" and sort of going and, you know, changing the whole mentality that it's one of those MMO games for kids ...

 

 

 

Mark Gerhard, CEO, Jagex: Like, less than 4% of our players are under 13, and the average age is 16. There are two major [bleep]es; one at 14, and one at 18. And then obviously secondarily one at 19 and weirdly one at 28. I guess that's all of us logging in ...

 

 

 

But the real average age is 16. And there's this perception that there's 8 year old boys playing the game and it's mad. In some respects I'm really happy that some people get our age demo wrong, but it's also been damaging to us because people like John Smedley at Free Realms who admires RuneScape, and openly admit to knocking it off, claims Free Realms is inspired by 'RuneScape.'

 

 

 

But happily even he's got it wrong. You go to Free Realms which is very kiddy, very Club Penguin, and that's good news for us. And my worst possible position is that our 4% of under 13 players go play Free Realms, no worries, the rest of the community will not shed a tear. But the problem is he doesn't stop there, he goes on and keeps telling people that he copied RuneScape and this is a great game for tweens. So it's like "Maybe we should be quiet and just let people think it's a kids game..."

 

 

 

But to be honest it is 16 and up. The best way to describe it is that we actively internally say we're making a game we want to play. And whilst we're not gratuitous with our content -- it might be enjoyed by a younger audience -- but in terms of the gameplay and complexity and puzzling, we've aimed it at an adult mind, not a kid mind. And, I think, that's the message we believe internally and we shared it with our guys. But now, it's important we start saying that publicly.

 

 

 

I think that's one way we may have failed as a company. We just said "Let's make a cool game and who gives a damn what they say." We haven't actually defended ourselves or gone out and said, you know, this is [cabbage]. We've kind of gone "Well, whatever."

 

 

 

And that's because, you know, we never had a marketing function, or a PR function. The company had grown virally and we didn't think it was important. And clearly it is, because if you say nothing people make up their own version of the truth so we'll have to start doing that more, communicating with the rest of the world; and that's part of it. The first thing we'll say is "These are our actual players" and our players are going, "Well thank God, I'm 32 and I'm happy to hear people say this isn't a kid's game." Our players are our best evangelists, so letting them know what we're focusing on is helpful, but now we just have to let the rest of the gaming world know.

 

 

 

We're basically coming out of the dark and started defending ourselves; maybe that's the best way to put it. Refuting the nonsense out there.

 

 

 

Another thing a lot of people say about "RuneScape" when they talk about it is that it's got free-to-play content, but doesn't care about free-to-play players as much. Why do you think that is? Is it true?

 

 

 

Let me answer that two ways. That wasn't the case when Jagex started. When Andrew built "RuneScape," it was always going to be a free game. He would pay for the service by running adverts. It was the dotcom bubble burst that forced Jagex to go, "We can't even pay for infrastructure anymore, what are we going to do?" so we invented the Membership model and thankfully a lot of our loyal players went across and wanted premium content and paid for it. That's kind of been our runaway success, if you will.

 

 

 

But that wasn't the reason for being. "RuneScape" wasn't started because we wanted to make money and therefore went with the subscription model; it was fairly accidental. So the free game has always been an entirely free game and sort of the graduation path for members. What we argue is that, given 80% of our players are free anyway, it's our most ardent fans who convert to being members. About 20%. But the reality is that there are also free players who go, "This is enough, I'm more than happy." If I think of our top free-to-play player, it's a Dutch 21 year old called S Diamant Y, Sara to her friends, and she's played something like 14,599 hours, 34 minutes and counting.

 

 

 

She's maxed out all skills except one, prayer, which is at 94; 99's the max. And she's done all the quests. And she's never been a member for even 1 day. There are players who have done even more hours if you consider their time playing RuneScape Classic. So there are a lot of people who take pride in just playing the free game, and there's an epic amount of free content there. I don't know of any other games that have tens of thousands of hours of gameplay and are entirely free.

 

 

 

I suppose MMOs have more anyway, due to their social elements, but nevertheless... So the free game was, and is, certainly vitally important to us. It's kind of the proving ground. The problem was, a year or so ago, there was -- let me say confusion, as a subtle word -- as to what part of the business was important. I expect the CEOs focus was just sort of on the profit and loss column, and all of the attention was sort of on "members members members and members conversions" and getting free players to convert to Members by putting members hooks in the free game. Unfortunately that had a really negative effect on the community, as you've taken what was an epic entirely free game and turned it into a sort of demo for the members game which was never the idea.

 

 

 

So unfortunately we had a year where we did that. One of my first orders of business in February was ripping that part out. There are various things we did to monetize the free players. Such as serving long-standing free players video ads. Something like 10 or 15 seconds. Which whilst profitable was simply wrong, not in the spirit of the free game, absolutely wrong. So one of my first orders of business was to rip that out; sort of get back to basics with what's important to us. We love all our players, we certainly do not want to treat our free players with contempt, you know.

 

 

 

Are you guys actively trying to go back and fix that, then?

 

 

 

We're making sure that the free game itself is being upgraded. Sort of upgrading the graphics and quests. So while we update our member content with new quests and such -- we want to make sure the free players benefit at the same time.

 

 

 

There's also things we've done while building our other MMO "MechScape," like particle effects and specula lighting, and it's like "Well now that we have those why not put them into magic effects [in RuneScape]?" So I do expect in the next year a lot of things will be re-prioritized to focus on the players and improving the game. They tell us what they enjoy, and we'll make more of it.

 

 

 

We've been going through the game and re-working content not appreciated by the players to make sure they understand we care about what they invest their time in. There was this impression that, you know, "RuneScape" has had its day, so let's just get what we can out of it. But certainly the team and I believe this game has another decade or two of life in it. It's been ten years in the making, but its become an institution, and we're not going to stop investing in it now or ever.

 

 

 

Yeah, we're going to create new MMOs as well. And we've got FunOrb, which is sort of our R&D lab to experiment with new game ideas and mechanics and we'll keep doing that because it's fun and we can, but our main focus will be investing in "RuneScape" and growing that.

 

 

 

I know you were talking about how this year you guys were going to do a lot of things to upgrade "RuneScape" and make it better, will you guys be upgrading the graphics again?

 

 

 

We will be. We're actually doing quite a bit in the field. There's always this weird tension. If you ask a player "Would you want better graphics?" it's like "Yeah." But if given a choice between better graphics or content, what would you choose? Some would answer graphics, but we certainly find the one that has the loudest voices is more content. Once you've established a certain standard, it's just taken for granted. People don't login to check out the textures on your wall or ceiling, they want to login and have fun. So there really is a tension.

 

 

 

While we have a permanent R&D team looking to upgrade our graphics, sound, etc., but the real focus -- almost 80:20 -- is on content, evolving the game and keeping it fun.

 

 

 

But we are doing a a lot on graphics . We're making a lot of performance improvements so they can be more widely appreciated on older systems, as well. We're not quite looking to create a "RuneScape 3" if that's what the thought is; the real effort is on the content. And, if a change sucks, we'll pull it out. Everything has to pass the "awesome test," and if it doesn't re-work it so it passes, or take it out completely. So we're doing that as well.

 

 

 

Any other big updates people can expect to see content wise, then?

 

 

 

We are actually working on a whole new game mechanic. I can't give much away, but it could be an entire game in its own right, or just a skill, or both, who knows [laughs]. That will be for free and members. But, yeah, that should be this year hopefully, needs to be awesome though. I don't want to give it away though because it's really exciting and no one has done it so we're kind of keeping that one close to our chest.

 

 

 

Basically, this was going to be our 2010 game -- we were going to create another game -- but we said, this just ties in so nicely with "RuneScape" and it's cool, the community would love this, so let's not make it another game, let's just put this in the game.

 

 

 

Sorry for being so cryptic about it! [laughs]

 

 

 

Trust me, I'm used to it. Corporate for only a few months and already you're hiding secrets... [laughs]

 

 

 

[laughs] I know! But what I realized is that if we hide stuff and then say "Yeah we're going to build this and it's awesome and the most exciting thing we've ever done!" and then launch it and it's like "Eh?," we've almost set ourselves up to fail before we even started. So we don't want to spin it; we want it to be a big surprise. So it will be a skill, and we will introduce a whole new type of gameplay as well, but you'll see it when it's ready.

 

 

 

Frustrating for some, but it's sort of like getting a gift, isn't it? It's a surprise, but if you are expecting what you get it never quite hits the mark.

 

 

 

Is it hard to build up anticipation when you can't tell people what there is?

 

 

 

Our PR chap is certainly pulling his hair out. He's like, "People are asking about stuff, can I tell them this?" and we'll say, "No." Or he'll go, "I'm at this event what can I talk about?" and we'll say "None of this, none of that." Right now, our strategy is stealth, which is probably frustrating for him. [laughs]

 

 

 

Time will tell if that works ...

 

 

 

Check back Friday, at 9AM PST for the third and final part of our three part interview with new Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard. In the third part, Mark talks about the other projects the company is working on, and a little more "RuneScape."

 

-.^

Cool

Now we know something big IS coming this year, hence the small amount of updates? And it's gonna be f2p too...

I'm loving these interviews. I'm glad they said the reason of not saying things is so that people don't go "eh" after so much work. It is better this way.

But yes, I (as well as pretty much everyone else) am happy for a new skill, especially if it is f2p and p2p. I might enjoy this new "gameplay" that could emerge.

Cool. But since when is S Diamant Y the best f2p player?

I'm not happy :shock:

I'm gonna have to get 85+ fast or it'll ruin my goal :P

Seriously though, a new skill is nice, and f2p.

Good read :)

But that wasn't the reason for being. "RuneScape" wasn't started because we wanted to make money and therefore went with the subscription model; it was fairly accidental. So the free game has always been an entirely free game and sort of the graduation path for members. What we argue is that, given 80% of our players are free anyway, it's our most ardent fans who convert to being members. About 20%. But the reality is that there are also free players who go, "This is enough, I'm more than happy." If I think of our top free-to-play player, it's a Dutch 21 year old called S Diamant Y, Sara to her friends, and she's played something like 14,599 hours, 34 minutes and counting.

 

 

 

She's maxed out all skills except one, prayer, which is at 94; 99's the max. And she's done all the quests. And she's never been a member for even 1 day. There are players who have done even more hours if you consider their time playing RuneScape Classic. So there are a lot of people who take pride in just playing the free game, and there's an epic amount of free content there. I don't know of any other games that have tens of thousands of hours of gameplay and are entirely free.

This interview must have been taken a long time ago, or he got his facts wrong. If it was taken a while ago, then Syzygy would be the best Free player with 99 in all F2P skills.

Cool. But since when is S Diamant Y the best f2p player?

Best as in most time played.

---

Very good interview, was comical, yet had information into how Jagex works.

This new CEO is pretty epic if you ask me.

What could possibly the new skill be? I can't imagine what skill could spark a whole new game :o

Wonder if Mobilising Armies is potentially linked to the new 'skill'. I mean, it could probably work as a separate game from what little we know of it. Could explain why it's taking forever to appear.

I look forward to the next part for extra runescape questions :) these have been a good read so far!

What could possibly the new skill be? I can't imagine what skill could spark a whole new game :o

SAILSCAPE@

Sweeeeeeet. :thumbup:

What could possibly the new skill be? I can't imagine what skill could spark a whole new game :o

 

SAILSCAPE@

Definitely! :ohnoes:

Ok, I find this very weird. A Jagex CEO giving out personal information about a player. Age, nationality and hours played. Isn't that totally against their policy? I mean, I don't mind, but it's contradictory.

Interesting read though.

But that wasn't the reason for being. "RuneScape" wasn't started because we wanted to make money and therefore went with the subscription model; it was fairly accidental. So the free game has always been an entirely free game and sort of the graduation path for members. What we argue is that, given 80% of our players are free anyway, it's our most ardent fans who convert to being members. About 20%. But the reality is that there are also free players who go, "This is enough, I'm more than happy." If I think of our top free-to-play player, it's a Dutch 21 year old called S Diamant Y, Sara to her friends, and she's played something like 14,599 hours, 34 minutes and counting.

 

 

 

She's maxed out all skills except one, prayer, which is at 94; 99's the max. And she's done all the quests. And she's never been a member for even 1 day. There are players who have done even more hours if you consider their time playing RuneScape Classic. So there are a lot of people who take pride in just playing the free game, and there's an epic amount of free content there. I don't know of any other games that have tens of thousands of hours of gameplay and are entirely free.

 

 

 

This interview must have been taken a long time ago, or he got his facts wrong. If it was taken a while ago, then Syzygy would be the best Free player with 99 in all F2P skills.

If you cut the part with 94 prayer everything seems right. Atm, there are 5 maxed F2P and S Diamant Y has the most XP of those, 574,525,451 to be specific.

If I think of our top free-to-play player, it's a Dutch 21 year old called S Diamant Y, Sara to her friends, and she's played something like 14,599 hours, 34 minutes and counting.

 

 

 

She's maxed out all skills except one, prayer, which is at 94; 99's the max. And she's done all the quests. And she's never been a member for even 1 day.

What on earth? S Diamant Y has had 99 prayer since 2008.

Odd inaccuracy, perhaps this was written in the first quarter of 2008 and not released until now.

Ok, I find this very weird. A Jagex CEO giving out personal information about a player. Age, nationality and hours played. Isn't that totally against their policy? I mean, I don't mind, but it's contradictory.

 

 

 

Interesting read though.

That struck me as odd as well, maybe she gave consent?

Wow, a very good read. : It really shows the new mentality Mark and the Gang have, and he's not afraid to admit Jagex made errors in the past. And I'm excited about the new SKILL!!@!@ :thumbsup:

Wonder if Mobilising Armies is potentially linked to the new 'skill'. I mean, it could probably work as a separate game from what little we know of it. Could explain why it's taking forever to appear.

 

That was the first thing I thought of when I read it.

Very interesting read, kinda explains why all the crappy updates last year

Just trying to push frees to members.

Hope this year they ERASE all that crap.

I mean... Trouble brewing and The great orb project are big failures in my opinion, even when I haven't tried Trouble brewing yet.

Remember: If it ain't awesome, don't do it :D

Very interesting read, kinda explains why all the crappy updates last year

 

 

 

Just trying to push frees to members.

 

 

 

Hope this year they ERASE all that crap.

 

 

 

I mean... Trouble brewing and The great orb project are big failures in my opinion, even when I haven't tried Trouble brewing yet.

 

 

 

Remember: If it ain't awesome, don't do it :D

Really...? You've never played Trouble Brewing and you call it a big failure?

And GoP is alright, it's got a large fanbase for the minigame, and it's a less monotonous way to train a boring skill.

You're right I should play it first :P

But you not gonna let me lie when I say there were updates last year that could had been better developed (Taking more time to do them like this year they're doing)

Ok, I find this very weird. A Jagex CEO giving out personal information about a player. Age, nationality and hours played. Isn't that totally against their policy? I mean, I don't mind, but it's contradictory.

 

 

 

Interesting read though.

 

 

 

That struck me as odd as well, maybe she gave consent?

Yes, probably. But still, it's quite odd. And they'd have to ask her for her age and her gender, because you can't extract those two parameters from a database. Odd thing to include.