Jagex Games Studio‘s MMORPG RuneScape reached its highest-ever membership peak during 2019, according to statistics released today. Between both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape membership swelled to over 1.1 million paying subscribers, in addition to many millions of others who participate in free-to-play.
Additionally, OSRS achieved a surge in popularity with daily active users reaching the highest-ever peak in the game’s six-year history during the game’s first full-year on both mobile and PC.
“Putting Jagex on track for its most successful year to date, 2019 was a record-breaking year for Jagex and our RuneScape communities,” said Phil Mansell, chief executive of Jagex. “We hit exciting milestones, welcomed more members and players to the games than at any point in their 19-year history, achieved significant success on mobile and saw notable industry talent joining our established teams to steer the future for our living games.”
Other milestones reached during 2019 include OSRS on mobile reached over 8 million installs, won a British Academy for Film Awards for EE Mobile Game of the Year, and was named Best Mobile Game at the Develop Stars Awards. The studio and game also raised 261,692 for charity and both the Charity Times Corporate Community Local Involvement award and the Gamesindustry.biz Best Places to Work CSR award.
Also during 2019, RuneScape streamed a record-breaking 11.3 million minutes of content on Twitch from RuneFest, the game’s fan convention.
“We’re delighted and deeply appreciate the dedication of our staff and fans,” added Mansell.
Last year also saw Jagex hire more than 100 new employees across development, publishing, and operations at its Cambridge HQ. Key appointments included former EA Development Director Melissa Bachman-Wood joining as VP of Studios, Product Director at Blizzard Entertainment Ryan Ward joining as Executive Producer of RuneScape, and Rob Hendry, previously Head of Studio London at Natural Motion, joining as Executive Producer of Old School RuneScape.
“This level of success only comes with the passion of huge player communities, who engage with our games because of the amazing craft and care from our talented teams,” said Mansell. “It is thanks to these efforts that we’ve been able to greatly increase our investment in our existing games, new product development and the broader business with more than 100 new hires coming on board in the last 12 months.”
RuneScape’s 19th birthday was January 4, 2020, and Jagex intends to celebrate the game’s 20th anniversary in 2021 with a series of initiatives that will show affection to the community of players that make the game so special.
Image: Jagex
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