New Jagex CEO Talks Future of RuneScape and OSRS, That 'Mistake' of a Customer Survey, and a Need to Be 'Less Aggressive' on Monetization

Recently, Jagex got a new CEO, Jon Bellamy, AKA Mod North. There's a Q&A with the new CEO on the future of RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, from development to monetization, and how to sustain the longer term.

Bellamy started his career at Jagex before later becoming an investor in other companies and worked for Huge Games, a mobile game company that was “very monetization oriented”. Ultimately, he returned to Jagex and is now CEO. 

Don’t let that mobile experience worry you, though. He addresses a few concerns, including  a membership survey that was asking about potential monetization changes, ads, or paid perks. Mod North addresses that directly, calling it a mistake. It was a “total misstep”, and “there will never be microtransactions in Old School RuneScape ever. This will never be an advertising-driven business, that's not who we are”. 

One of the things in that survey blunder that did strike a nerve was human customer support floated as a paid member perk. There will be a roadmap for customer service improvements out next month. The new CEO says they will treat improvements like the development of a large piece of content and work with the community on customer service improvements. 

As for the potential future of RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, the primary objective is to continue growing the communities on their games, to let the teams keep creating content people want, and build some hype. Bellamy emphasizes an economic model to sustain the game for a long time. it could be setting it up for 25 years of sustainable growth. As for that previous experience with aggressive monetization at a mobile game company, he says that “RuneScape 3 needs to be less aggressive on monetization in order to build sustainability for the next 25 years”. 

He also acknowledges skepticism and worry over his appointment as CEO with a background in mobile gaming, but says that experience lets him see more clearly why such practices are “totally incompatible” with RuneScape. While the current mode is not sustainable, they're looking at changes to make everything healthier and to grow, including those potential monetization changes. With a game that's almost 25 years old, it will be a process and they'll keep us informed.