with RuneScape.” says Casey, before pointing out that it doesn’t mean there won’t be a console spin-off at some point in the future. “We’re always exploring opportunities to bring the game and the the universe of RuneScape to new audiences and new platforms. So that might take the shape of a different form, or a different genre, using the lore and the world of Gielinor, but in its current form, it works well on mobile, it works well on desktop, but I think when you’re looking at things like gamepad controls, it gets quite sticky and fiddly.”
HOLDING A CANDLE
Jagex has found that the player base for RuneScape Mobile has been a consistent one, despite slowing down a little bit after a somewhat frantic initial launch window. The move to mobile has therefore been a positive one, allowing the game to reach more players than it ever had before, sometimes in places it never has. “We had that kind of great problem at the beginning,
where so many people were trying to get the game on their devices. We had a really successful pre-registration campaign where players could pre-install the app and get some rewards for doing that. So on day one, when we launched it, a lot of players were really queued up for it. That then meant a huge amount of data being downloaded through our servers and we had to upgrade
In the last 12 months, MMOs have seemed to be getting popular again with the releases of New World and Lost Ark. People were shifting to new MMOs, and Final Fantasy XIV got a massive influx of new players, most of which seemingly emigrated from Azeroth, the world of Warcraft. When asked about the changing behaviours of the audience, Casey doesn’t shy away, saying “I’ll be honest, we didn’t feel it much last year. So very often these things happen, that there are big releases, or, AAA releases that come out, and we’re kind of like, ‘well did anything really happen?’ I think the last time we really felt it, when we noticed something in our data, was when Pokemon GO came out. RuneScape
fans tend to be very dedicated. So when you see certain things, you think ‘well that’s gonna make a dent’, but then we’re fine. For us, it tends to be quite short-lived if we notice it at all.”
to keep up with the demand, which is always a great problem to have.” said Casey, “It did mean at the very first launch, some players found it a bit frustrating to get in. I think some of the other things that happened took us a little bit by surprise, right at the outset. We had players from territories that we’ve never really seen RuneScape be successful in playing the game and downloading it. But because we aren’t globally localised at this point, some players who were expecting the game to be fully localised, didn’t get that experience, which was unfortunate for them. We initially got a big surge of players, but that’s settled down a bit. We see about a third of our player base on mobile every day, either playing solely on mobile, or a combination of mobile and desktop, with some players taking advantage of cross play. It stays reasonably constant.”
Has it been a success, porting RuneScape to mobile then? Casey believes so, saying “We measure our success by the amount of our players that are engaging. One of the key metrics that we put in place was crossplay. That was one of the goals that we wanted to have. So how many people are engaging, not just on desktop, but using our app as something that helps them play. That exceeded our expectations. The other part was what we said at the beginning about reactivating players that hadn’t played for a long time. That kind of lapsed audience of people that maybe hadn’t played for six months, a year, longer than that, we saw a big increase in players coming back to the game. Again, that was one of our main aims of trying to do this in the first place, as well as trying to reach new audiences, which we did. Bringing back those players that still hold a candle for it in their hearts somewhere, who are like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna give that a go now on mobile’. I think that made it a real success for us.”
July 2022 MCV/DEVELOP | 69 Pocket sand.
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