RuneScape Reports 1 Million Paying Subscribers
Not alone in the wilderness
RuneScape, the browser-based massively multiplayer game from Jagex, now has a million paying subscribers, the company reported today. Just $5 a month gets players “exclusive quests, skills and a huge map of the fantasy world Gielenor, to explore.” The fact that it’s being shelled out by a million kids (or their parents; the RuneScape demographic is reportedly very young) is fairly impressive. Among Western MMOs, only World of Warcraft can boast more than a million paying subscribers. (Most MMO subscribers, including WoWs, pay around $15 a month.) And, as Matt Mihaly pointed out some time ago (in asking whether RuneScape would reach 1 millions subs), the game reportedly has some 5 million players, including those who play for free, and concurrency rates above 200,000. Jagex says they have 150 support staff devoted to the game, if that’s any gauge. [UPDATE: Matt has more details from an interview with the Jagex dude, Andrew Gowan.] I think it’s pretty significant to the future of media that there are a million young teens paying for this game, and four million more playing it from time to time. More evidence that 3D multiuser environments are here to stay as part of the media landscape. Most readers of this blog don’t need to be convinced of that, but there are many, many people out there who aren’t yet clued in. Successes like Jagex’s should help with that.
Feeds
Based on my parental experience, I’d say more “tweens” play rather than teens. This is all the rage with my boys (10-12)
Ubuntu, Spoof Cards and Avatar Economics…
A few interesting links to close or kick-off the week. (Note I am still on family leave.)
1) John Hunter comments on my Dell / Ubuntu post, a very short post, that seemed to get people’s curiosity aroused. John’s blog entry on Dell and Ubun…
runescape rules and i think world of war craft is a rip off runescape might not habe the best graphics but it’s the best game ever.
I think RS is a great game personally. It doesn’t have the best graphics, that’s for sure, but it’s so much better than the retardedly expensive WoW. I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t see how people can waste money on that. It costs like 60 dollars for the game and the first month or something like that. I have better things to waste my money on, lol.
Runescape is not purely played by teens and kids. There are massive numbers of adults who play too. I know this as we are a couple in our 40’s who play as members and we have persuaded umpteen other people between 25 and 55 to try it and they all got hooked. many other players we talk to in game are more mature too.
Runescape is a clickfest. Click click click work work work. The only purpose of the game is to work and work to get better items or max skills and be on the High Score chart. To max one skill to 99 (and I have 4) takes around 800 hours of gameplay and im not kidding at all.
hey visit my runescape blog for cheats, tips and hints plus other cool stuff at addicted2runescape.blogspot.com
i hope it works!
Wow! 5 million bucks a month … wish I’d thought o’ that! This market can only grow … now all I need is that one great game idea … hmmm
when i bring up the runescape world map! it comes up black with a little X in a box up tha top left hand coorner! can some1 telll me how to fix this plzzz
i need 1 mill a day please so i can buy alot of stuff n ya please ill do anything well almost anything just please i got nothing to do n im bored.. so may i have 1 mill a day please… =[
I don’t think Runescape is very addictive, at least not even close to WoW or some of the other downloadable games out there. Then again, if these Runescape playing kids weren’t playing Runescape, they’d be on their Xbox or playstation, so I really don’t see a total solution to this gaming problem.
Hello, I’m interested in advertising on your site. Please let me know if your interested.