Increase monthly membership

[Veggie]

I just looked and there are currently 90k people on RuneScape at 11pm GMT which is probably peak time in general throughout the world... That's a poor amount of players. I remember playing at like 3pm GMT and there being at least 150k players on almost permanently.

I'm surprised that they think they're in a situation to charge an increased amount. That's ~£2 less than SW:TOR. I know I'd definitely rather pay to play that.

It gets over 100k at the very peak hours of the week. Just before the bot-nuke, there were about 220-250k players on at any given time, and just afterwards the peak hours got up to around 50-60k players. It may seem from the numbers that there are very few people playing, but a lot of the players you include in your 150k figure were bots.

They made little, if any, on bots because the ones that did buy members were often paid for using stolen credit cards. Free to play bots, which was about 90% of them, generated no income for Jagex besides a little in advertising, whereas they had to use a lot of human resources to stop the bots.

With all of the new content they announced at RuneFest, I would say that they are in a position to raise the prices for new members.

[Dan G]

They made little, if any, on bots because the ones that did buy members were often paid for using stolen credit cards. Free to play bots, which was about 90% of them, generated no income for Jagex besides a little in advertising, whereas they had to use a lot of human resources to stop the bots.

So they're trying to replace money they weren't getting anyway? I read a few of their posts on the RSOF thread and almost all of the JMods replies were something to do with botting from what I saw

Anyway; A £1.75 increase per month = £21 increase per year roughly. Which brings the total to £60 a year. That's bullshit. £60 a year for a browser based game when there are superior and more popular games on the market for similar if not cheaper cost.

Seeing as I don't pay for the game anyway, it doesn't bother me to the extent of me wanting to quit but still, the increase in my eyes is just pure greed. They already get thousands if not millions of subscribers' money and yet still run a browser game that can - according to Jagex themselves - be run on the simplest machines money could buy 10 years ago.

I can see one reason for them needing to increase the price to maintain the previous income and that's because the game takes a far shorter time to "complete" now... When the game took years to finish at £3/month people would continue their subscriptions while they chipped away at the levels. Nowadays, it doesn't take long at all (relatively speaking) to achieve 99 everything so people are probably quitting a lot sooner than they previously would have.

[Deathstar]

You can get a year's wow subscription for like 11.95 or 12.95 a month and you get a free copy of D3. I guess the games are a small bit on top of that but I think you can get all four discs for 60 bucks and you get a month or two with that. They also have a customer support system that exists so you get what you pay for.

Typically games don't have bugs/glitches that go unfixed. That sort of thing sticks with the design company and leads to them having a bad reputation for releasing unfinished/broken games.

uhhh, I think rs had more players around when rs2 came out eight years ago than it does now. They should cut back on some of their worlds to save some money. Or just stop bullshitting and actually make a game that runs properly.

[Houston Coog]

that's why i'm f2p

[Rafi]

I still pay $5 a month for membership cause I've never lapsed more than 14 days (well, I did once by a couple weeks, but I e-mailed them about the circumstances and they put me back on $5/month). I also just bought the 6 months / $4.xx per month— even at $5/mo I'm saving several dollars.

That said, $8/month is $36/year more at my right, and $24/year more at the normal rate. $96 = 12 hours of work per year at minimum wage. For the amount many people play Runescape, that's not too unreasonable considering that they still provide regular updates and new content. If for example I value leisure time at 2/7ths the value of work time (eg 5 day work-week), then it would be worth it after 42 hours of gameplay a year.

It is just a theoretical example, but my point is that the majority of Runescapers play that much in a month, easily. Even if you only play 16 hours a month, you are only paying 50 cents/hour to play, which is way cheaper than an arcade game!

[Veggie]

Typically games don't have bugs/glitches that go unfixed. That sort of thing sticks with the design company and leads to them having a bad reputation for releasing unfinished/broken games.

Modern Warfare 2

[Emeraldwpn]

ya'll need to invest in games like killing floor. $20 one time pay, lifetime of fun.

Is that game really good was thinking of buying it.

yes

[Iruleuall4]

This video from about 8:40 onward pretty much sums up my views on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUGM5zMOoYg&t=8m35s

[Iruleuall4]

Typically games don't have bugs/glitches that go unfixed. That sort of thing sticks with the design company and leads to them having a bad reputation for releasing unfinished/broken games.

Modern Warfare 2

Iruleuall4 likes Vigilant Foe's post.

[Memphus]

I recall 2 years ago or so they would release one new quest every week.

Now we get one per month, if we're lucky.

[Bryce]

[Stunner]

Well now i have to get a job to continue my runescape career....

[Deathstar]

Well now i have to get a job to continue my runescape career....

get on vent sometime

[Glad2BeMac]

They just want our moneys!

Edited January 27, 2012 by MacRS