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 Post subject: [Informer Article] Jagex Isn't Evil... It's Just...
PostPosted: January 11th, 2014, 4:35 pm 
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Okay, so I know some of you probably just fell out of your chairs at the thought that the above title was actually written by me, Jason. So while you are getting back into your chair I will explain a little.

Jagex is not evil. Many of us players may think that though because of the updates over the past few years. When you think about it though, Jagex has gone through a lot of back-end changes. These are things we never, or rarely ever, hear about. The thing is, they still affect us.

What are some of these changes?

Change of CEO
In October of 2007 Geoff Iddison replaced Constant Tedder, Jagex's first CEO. He was previously PayPal's European CEO. In January 2009 Iddison resigned and Mark Gerhard replaced him as CEO. Gerhard was previously Jagex's CTO.
One of the most notable things about this change was that it marked a stark change in Quest releases per year. Not counting the Quests from DeviousMUD and Classic(which Constant Tedder was responsible for), there were 48 quests released during Tedder's 2004 to late 2007 tenure as RuneScape 2's CEO.
Iddison was responsible for 18 between October 2007 and January 2009.
Gerhard has so far been responsible for 39 between January 2009 and right now, January 2014.
Tedder: 12 Quests per year on average.
Iddison: 13.8 Quests per year on average.
Gerhard: 7.8 Quests per year on average.

Now, I am not saying MMG is responsible for the 40% decrease in quests. There were many other factors, some of which I will talk about later. However this must be noted as a point in history. The change of CEOs, which could be considered rapid, definitely had an impact on RuneScape. I think the loss of Constant Tedder specifically is of importance as he is one of the first members of Jagex, one of the ones who built RuneScape.

Change of Investors
Until 2005, Jagex and RuneScape were entirely self-funded and owned by the owner-developer brothers Andrew and Paul Gower. I am not sure if Constant Tedder was part of the ownership at this time. In October 2005 IVP, or legally known as Insight Venture Partners, invested in Jagex up to a 35% interest. This act is not surprising as Jagex and RuneScape were a very profitable and successful venture and it made sense for investment corporations to invest in it.
In December of 2010 The Raine Group and Spectrum Equity Investors invested in Jagex as well. At this same time IVP raised their investment to 55%, which is a controlling interest. Most notably, Andrew Gower, Paul Gower, and Constant Tedder left the board of directors at this time. Thus the creators no longer had control over the direction of RuneScape.

This, I believe, is why we see RuneScape begin to change so drastically after 2010. The creators no longer had an influence in the future of their work and investors, who primarily want money, took over the control. Now it should be noted that the investors, though having control, do not make the day-to-day and content decisions. That is up to the CEO, Lead Developers, and Department Heads. However the investors can still pressure the aforementioned staff, leading/forcing them to make certain decisions(I.E. the more prominent and constant attempts to get players' to spend more). Premium, Squeal of Fortune, RuneCoins, and to some extent Bonds are all derived at least in part from this.

Severe War against Bots
I do not really think I need to go into the War on Bots in depth. One thing that should be mentioned, however, is that while yes, Jagex did get subscriptions from the bots, they had to refund the cost of those that had used fraudulent cards and the like. Many bots were paid for with stolen credit cards. When the credit card companies noticed this fraudulent use they revoked the transactions and Jagex had to return the funds. After a while this began to hurt Jagex's financial reliability and quite a few financial institutions threatened Jagex with not doing business with them due to the massive amount of fraudulent transactions.

You can imagine the trouble if no bank or credit card company will do business with you. Thankfully this never fully happened, however the threat of it forced Jagex to do the anti-bot measures we have experienced over the years. Some were ineffective, some were effective but too restrictive for the players, and otherwise we have seen work. The two releases of the bot-nuking system seem to have had the most effect against bots and gold farmers. The effect of Bonds is still highly disputed, but that is a topic for another article.

Back in your chair now?
Good.

The past few years have been very rough.
Active player counts have gone up and down (mostly down, due to bots being mostly removed).
The updates have been all over the place - Quests, Monsters, Graphics, Gear, Music, Bosses, Skills, Minigames, Interface, Combat, Cosmetics, Microtransactions. If you have ever seen it in a computer game, chances are Jagex has added it over the past few years.

Whether 'now is the Best time to be playing RuneScape' or '2006 to 2009 was the Golden Age' can't be truthfully stated by one person because it is a matter of personal opinion and playstyle. Many players like the current game, and just as many prefer the old style. Both are good in their own rights, neither can fairly be stated as 'better' or 'worse' than the other. Any such statements are a matter of personal preference, playstyle, and thought. I preferred the game before many of the modern things were added, but others like the game better as it is now. Is one game better or worse? That, in reality, can only be answered by the one asking it, and then only for themselves.

There is one undeniable truth, though, and that is that Jagex has added so many things that other games are popular for - Raiding, Competition, Graphics, Challenge, even Pay to Win - and yet they remain less popular than they once were. Why? I mean, if other games are popular because they each do one of these things well, why is RuneScape not popular when it has all of them?

Have you ever heard that old adage, "Jack of all trades, master of none?" Most games are really good in a few areas and passable in others. Think of your favorite game, which two things is it best known for? What two things is it worst at? Are both of those things about the same? Not likely, otherwise one would not be the best and the other would not be the worst.
Jagex has tried to do too many things recently. Mod Mark even admitted this in a recent video, which I was happy to hear. Not that they are doing too much, but that they know they tried to do too much.

If it came down to it I would much rather see one awesomely amazing piece of content every month or couple of months than constant stuff every few weeks that is, quite frankly, 'bleh'. RuneScape has IMMENSE potential, if only they would make use of it. Most notably is RuneScape's quest system. Where most games have a 'Go here to kill X of Y to get Z of N and bring them to Peggy.', RuneScape has an advanced system which could literally make you trek all over the world - and never kill a thing. Where most games' quests take minutes, RuneScape's could take hours or even days - all while having fun!

Alright, let's bring this around for a landing...
With the changes of leadership also came changes of focus. Constant Tedder and the Gower Brothers were the creators. Mark Gerhard and IVP are just operators.

You see, Creators have this thing called a 'Vision'. They cannot described it to you exactly or tell you how exactly to make it, but they know what it is and what it is not. They know what is needed and what is not, because it is their creation. They just... know. The original staff had a vision for RuneScape, this vision was their focus.
The current leadership does not have the same vision and thus do not have the same focus. They cannot, because it is not their creation. This is not, however, to say that they cannot have a good vision for the game. They could, they can, they should! The problem is they do not currently.

Stop trying to make RuneScape something.
Instead, develop what it already is.

Jagex wants to provide a great game. They want to produce great content. They want to have a great community. They want to have a great atmosphere. I believe this based on things I have seen and heard lately. Does this change my views on recent updates? No. I have said before and reiterate now, I don't like nor think many of the recent updates have been to RuneScape's benefit. However, I do believe Jagex wants to do the right things.

Jagex is not evil, they have just lost their focus.

This was originally posted as an Informer Runescape article.

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 Post subject: Register and login to get these in-post ads to disappear
PostPosted: January 11th, 2014, 4:35 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Jagex Isn't Evil... It's Just...
PostPosted: January 12th, 2014, 12:24 am 
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I'm going to respectfully rebut Jason. I love this article (and you), even if I don't agree.

I don't think Jagex has necessarily tried to do too much. I would say that they explored new areas for MMOs in an attempt to be pioneers in their field and didn't always succeed. HTML5 I think we can declare as a failure, but that doesn't mean there were not positive outcomes from it. We are getting a new client and a game running on a completely new language that won't have imposed third party limitations, and that is a major win, both for players and the company. Bot Nuke 2 and the "trials" for bots in game may be and has been dead content the same month it came out, but that resulted in Botwatch and bonds, both of which had major success and a positive impact on the game. Jagex is firing from the hip and trying to revolutionize the game as well as the way MMOs deal with certain issues and they made some great strides. The failures shouldn't be seen as "lack of focus", they sent out feelers to see if certain ideas had merit. They aren't scared of taking chances, and they aren't demotivated when something doesn't work because they always gain something from it and can usually find something to salvage from it. Some people hate that and some people think it's great.

The game may not be what the Gowers envisioned, but 10 years later, if they had stuck to how things were the game would be completely dead. There are plenty of great, award winning games that fade away and become unsustainable after just a few years. For Runescape to survive they've HAD to take risks and adapt and change. Where other games have come and gone and been replaced several times over, Runescape still remains and dare I say still innovate and change what MMOs can do and be. That doesn't mean they've lost their way or tainted the creators' vision - they are survivors. They are the phoenix. They are the Gandolf the White of MMOs.


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 Post subject: Re: [Informer Article] Jagex Isn't Evil... It's Just...
PostPosted: January 13th, 2014, 9:08 pm 
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I agree with Jason on this one. Although I would say rather than losing focus, Jagex has found a different focus entirely.

With CEO changes, I think it's hard to compare one to the next. Each person is different goals, different styles, different outcomes. And sometimes, things happen that aren't their fault, but they are nevertheless pegged with the blame. In terms of quests releases, I'd say it was much easier in the first years to come up with new material as RS was a blank slate when it came to lore and it was easy to come up with anything new. Nowadays, Jagex has chosen to build on previous story lines instead of creating new ones...which is fine, but it means less original stories and quests are going to be developed as a result. Number of quests is not as important as the issue of decreased creativity/originality. True, it is necessary to continue furthering quest lines eventually rather than leaving them dormant for years at a time (*cough* Elves story line), but there should be new quests coming out as well.

Change in investors has had an impact no doubt. I agree that once the original creators lost control of the game to outside interests is when things changed dramatically. Financial success has played a bigger role in Runescape now more than ever. With a dereasing player base, Jagex has had to look to other ways to generate revenue in the form of Pay-to-Win. development of Funorb, etc. Before, content and creativity was key. Now, money has taken higher priority for better or for worse.

The Bot War was reactionary in nature. Players were tired of bots from the start and Jagex had made little attempt to remedy the problem until, like you said, the issue began to affect their finances. Jagex should have taken care of it and given much more priority to it sooner before it became such a problem. This would have been a positive action in the eyes of players and likely would have stymied player population decreases at least for a short while.

To your main point, it's hard to say whether Jagex has done too much or not enough. In some ways, Jagex has done a lot more to "modernize" the game, give it more appeal to a wider audience, and introduce elements that were a long time coming. On the other hand, Jagex hasn't done enough to keep the game in it's original form, changed elements or added content that heavily diverged from the creators' original intent, and overall negatively affected the game.

At the core of your argument is an answer. Runescape is already well developed at this point with huge potential to build on what's already there. Rather than focusing on bringing Runescape into line with other MMOs out there, Jagex should focus on what has made the game great from the beginning.

@Rickles
It's true sometimes that games need to take a risk in development in order to become something better than what it is. But at the same time, that risk can be minimized and calculated rather than a pure shot in the dark.

I personally doubt the Gowers would have remained obstinate and done nothing innovative to keep Runescape alive. After creation, game survival becomes more dependent on your content creation team then the founding creators themselves. The founders keep the content team from straying too far from the original focus which is arguably what happened after the Gowers left. I think the Gowers would have brought on smart people to help with the development of the game while still avoiding the "pitfalls" of focusing on real life financial success.

We'll never know for certain how the game would be today had the Gowers stayed, but it most certainly would have been much different from what we see now.

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