Why are more gamers than ever playing the 2000s classic RuneScape?

[5 Other People]

Great article in the BBC newspaper talking about how Runescape ditched the gottcha gaming, went hard into QOL fixes and is having a huge uptick in users for a very old game....someone get this article into DDO mgmt hands please?!?!

Search: "Why are more gamers than ever playing the 2000s classic RuneScape?"

"RuneScape players were given a vote on whether to get rid of many of its in-game purchases - something often annoying for gamers, but a big revenue stream for developers.

Unsurprisingly, gamers overwhelmingly voted to ditch the mechanic, and it has certainly bought the new boss a lot of goodwill."
...
"Its number of paid members grew to "well over a million" according to the company, an increase of 30% compared to the start of the year.

Many millions more play for free, and the firm saw a historic milestone in 2025 - with a whopping 240,000 logging in at the same time, the most simultaneous players in the game's 25-year history.

To put that into context, at the time of writing, only three games available on the online store Steam have more current players."

 

[Tyranthraxus]

I tried to like this Runescape game, but it is SO boring compared to DDO. I can see why it's popular though, with a combination of massive nostalgia momentum, a great community, it's ideologically/politically neutral, and sticks to timeless fantasy tropes.

 

[Necrodancer]

Played Runescape in the past, the game was MASSIVELY over monetized. You even had to buy vip subscription to unlock shortcuts such as climbing a fence (yes, really). Any QoL would have been a nice improvement and it's not like they had a choice other than to fail.

Any player would want to remove artificial monetary barriers, no surprise there BUT the old management was so blind and money hungry you almost had to pay just to start the game. It was a mandatory move and they gave players the illusion their vote mattered since any sane person with no experience in running a game would have done the same thing.

EDIT
For those interested, the shortcut thingy was tied to a skill about agility or athleticism or something along those lines. It was a VIP only skill.....this should tell you a lot about how the game worked.

 

[AlimonyJFMSU]

Played Runescape in the past, the game was MASSIVELY over monetized. You even had to buy vip subscription to unlock shortcuts such as climbing a fence (yes, really). Any QoL would have been a nice improvement and it's not like they had a choice other than to fail.

Any player would want to remove artificial monetary barriers, no surprise there BUT the old management was so blind and money hungry you almost had to pay just to start the game. It was a mandatory move and they gave players the illusion their vote mattered since any sane person with no experience in running a game would have done the same thing.

EDIT
For those interested, the shortcut thingy was tied to a skill about agility or athleticism or something along those lines. It was a VIP only skill.....this should tell you a lot about how the game worked.

Hard disagree. In any case you have access to teleport spells, and now F2Ps can use the Lum river to move around the map, but depending on when you played that may have not been a thing. Usually the shortcuts really only saved you a minute. I played up to clvl 107? as an F2P only, and must have had a total level in excess of 1000. The problem with OSRS is that once you hit the endgame, it feels very senseless. You're leveling skills for the sake of leveling skills, usually while alt tabbed and watching some youtube video. Another problem is that it's practically an online solo game. You exist in a world full of people, but rarely if ever do you actually talk to or interact with them. The world feels lonely, and not terribly immersive. But as far as monetization went, the game was good. As an F2P you had access to adequate stuff to do whatever.

 

[Shear-buckler]

But peasants should not get stuff for free

 

[5 Other People]

I have no interest in playing RunesScape.

I do think this article does a brilliant job of demonstrating how a game can become over monetized and pulling back on blunt money grabs and focusing on FUN creates a real avenue to make more money for SSG.

SSG likes money right?!? Come take our money, please

 

[Blerkington]

I'd like to see them rejig their monetisation model because I think the current one is a dead end. It just keeps increasing the buy-in cost for new players, so what will happen is we won't get enough new people to replace current players dying off even if the goal is to keep player numbers fairly static.

The problem is, even with the transfer to 64 bit servers it doesn't seem like the infrastructure could cope with a large influx of new people. So it's very hard to see how this is going to end well even with a change of approach to how the game makes money. The only unknown at this point is how much longer this wretched shambles of a dog and pony show can keep stumbling along.

 

[adamkatt]

never played it so i dont know.