User:Pliigi/J

Jagex Games Studio

Company type	Private
Industry	Interactive entertainment MMORPG Software consultancy and supply.
Founded	December 2001 (used as a trading name since 1999)
Headquarters	Cambridge, United Kingdom
Key people	Mark Gerhard Andrew Gower Paul Gower Ian Gower Constant Tedder James Quagliaroli Brandon Wade Gardner Christopher Mitchell Thomas John Scott Salter
Products	RuneScape RuneScape Classic FunOrb Stellar Dawn War of Legends 8Realms Transformers Online
Number of employees	450+
Website	http://www.jagex.com/

Jagex Games Studio, based in Cambridge, is the UK’s largest independent developer and publisher of online games. Jagex is best known for RuneScape, the world's largest free-to-play MMORPG.

In addition to RuneScape, Jagex has released over 40 casual games on its FunOrb portal and published several independently-developed titles.

Jagex has over 400 employees who provide content development, employee management, and customer support in house.

Corporate history

Early years

After initially creating the Jagex name and logo for their projects Andrew Gower and Paul Gower began trading under the Jagex name in 1999, describing Jagex Software as a "small software company based in England who specialise in producing top-quality Java-games for webpages." That same year they began work on the MMORPG RuneScape, which was released in January 2001. In December 2001, Andrew Gower, Paul Gower, and Constant Tedder launched Jagex in its current incarnation, with Tedder as its CEO. Jagex Ltd formally acquired the Jagex name from Andrew Gower in 2001.

thumb|right|One of the original Jagex logos RuneScape grew dramatically; one year after its release over a million free accounts had been registered.

The game was originally supported by advertisements, however, the Dot-com bubble meant that there were fewer advertisers willing or able to sign with Jagex. One of the first tasks of the new company was to create a paid version of the game with extra features, to support hosting costs and continued development. This was achieved on 27 February 2002 when the pay-to-play version of RuneScape was released. It gained 5,000 subscribers in the first week, making it one of the largest Java pay-to-play games in the world at the time.

Employees

As RuneScape gained users, Jagex grew its employee base. By 11 December 2003, RuneScape had 65,000 paying members, and Jagex had 29 employees. On 4 May 2007, RuneScape had over 6,000,000 active free accounts and over 1,000,000 active pay-to-play subscribers. In January 2011, Jagex had over 400 employees.

Investors and management

On 23 October 2007, Geoff Iddison, former European CEO of PayPal, replaced Constant Tedder as CEO in order to "accelerate international growth."

Iddison resigned as CEO in January 2009, and was replaced by Mark Gerhard, who had been the Chief Technical Officer for Jagex before his appointment.

Jagex received an investment from Insight Venture Partners in October 2005. The company had been self-funded before this investment.

In December 2010 The Raine Group and Spectrum Equity Investors invested in Jagex, while Insight Venture Partners increased their investment.

Andrew Gower, Paul Gower and Constant Tedder left the board of directors at that time. Though Andrew Gower is currently listed as Jagex's lead developer, it is unclear how involved he, his brother, and Tedder still are in the management of Jagex.

Publishing and acquisitions

In 2010 the Jagex Publishing division was launched with the release of War of Legends. The company has stated that it has "ambitious plans to release multiple titles from third-party developers."

On 26 July 2010, Jagex bought the game Planetarion from Renegade Games, who had themselves bought the rights in February 2009.

In August 2010, Jagex acquired the technology and assets of Undercroft, a mobile game developed by Prague-based Rake in Grass.

Other mediums

On 25 July 2008, Jagex released its first novel - Betrayal at Falador, written by T.S. Church. A sequel, Return to Canifis, was released on 24 March 2011.

The Financial Times reported in April 2011 that the possibility of a RuneScape movie being developed in partnership with Hasbro Studios was being explored.

Membership & industry organisations

Jagex became a member of TIGA, the United Kingdom's game developer trade body, on 15 April 2009. Richard Wilson, TIGA's CEO, described Jagex as "one of the most successful game developers in the world, not just the UK. Jagex has developed extraordinarily popular games and is at the leading edge in terms of online safety and security."

Jagex has also collaborated with iCould, a career development organisation project, and several members of staff have appeared in videos on their website.

Exhibitions and conferences

In 2008 Jagex began attending a number of gaming conventions and exhibitions, both to show off its products and to give keynote speeches. Events it was present at included E3, the Leipzig Games Convention, and the Virtual Worlds Forum.

Awards and accomplishments

Jagex has received recognition and awards in a number of areas. In 2007, the company was ranked 59th in the Sunday Times '100 Best Companies to Work For' list, and ranked 87th in 2008. In 2009, it was ranked as the 29th "Most Successful Game Studio in the World" by Develop magazine, and won the "Best Desktop Game Project" award at the Duke's Choice Awards.

In 2010, the company won the "Private Company of the Year" award at the East of England Business Awards. Jagex also received the Golden Joystick award for "Best UK Developer" in 2009 and 2010.

Jagex came in 3rd place at the 2008 Develop Conference Pub Quiz and sponsored and won the 2011 Develop Quiz.

In 2011, Jagex received a Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category.

Charity fund raising

Since 2004 Jagex has made donations to a number of national and international charities, as well as running charity auctions for signed merchandise.

In 2008 they donated artwork and prizes to the MMOCalendar, which raises funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Backronym

The original backronym of Jagex, "Java Gaming Experts," was changed to "Just About the Game Experience" prior to the release of War of Legends. Since Jagex no longer released games programmed exclusively in Java, the original backronym was rendered defunct.

Release history

RuneScape

Main article: RuneScape

[[:Image:RuneScape Screenshot.png|thumb|right|A RuneScape screenshot]] RuneScape is a fantasy MMORPG released in January 2001 by Andrew and Paul Gower. It is a graphical browser game implemented on the client-side in Java, and incorporates 3D rendering. The game has approximately 10 million active accounts per month, over 156 million registered accounts, and is recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world's most popular free-to-play MMORPG.

RuneScape takes place in the world of Gielinor, a medieval fantasy realm divided into different kingdoms, regions, and cities. Each region offers different types of monsters, resources, and quests to challenge players. The game's fictional universe has also been explored through a tie-in video game on its maker's other website, FunOrb, Armies of Gielinor, and the novels Betrayal at Falador and Return to Canifis.

Players are represented in the game with customisable avatars. RuneScape does not follow a linear storyline; rather, players set their own goals and objectives. Players can choose to fight non-player character (NPC) monsters, complete quests, or increase their experience in the available skills. Players interact with each other through trading, chatting, or by participating in mini-games and activities, some of which are competitive or combative in nature, while others require cooperative or collaborative play.

FunOrb

Main article: FunOrb

FunOrb is a casual gaming site created by Jagex. Launched on 27 February 2008, it was the company's first major release after RuneScape. All of the games are programmed in Java.

The site is mainly targeted towards the "hard casual," "deep casual" or "time-pressured" gamer market and that it intends to expand into the mobile phone games market. On 3 December 2009, Jagex released its first mobile phone game, Bouncedown, for the iPhone and iPod touch, followed by StarCannon on 15 April 2010 Miner Disturbance on 8 June 2010, and Undercroft on 23 September 2010.

War of Legends

Main article: War of Legends

War of Legends is an MMORTS set in a world of ancient Chinese mythology. It was Jagex's first MMORTS, the company's first externally-developed game, the first game published by Jagex not to be written in Java, and the company's first microtransactional game.

Mobile

Jagex released its first mobile game, Bouncedown, for the iPhone and iPod touch on 3 December 2009, followed by StarCannon on 15 April 2010, Miner Disturbance on 8 June 2010, and Undercroft on 23 September 2010.

8Realms, the company's first HTML based game, is designed to work on the iPad.

Games in development

Stellar Dawn

Main article: Stellar Dawn

In 2007 Jagex registered UK trademarks and various related domain names for the term MechScape. At the 2008 E3 Media and Business Summit it was announced that Jagex were working on a new MMO to be called MechScape, expected in the first quarter of 2009. Henrique Olifiers, Lead Developer at the time, announced that it would be browser-based like RuneScape, but would be one or two steps beyond RuneScape HD's level of technology, that it would have a science fiction theme and that it would be aimed at an older audience. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, then CEO Geoff Iddison stated that Jagex have "got a very, very big investment into another MMO" and that it was expected to be released "early next year, Q1 2009" - when asked if he was referring to MechScape, he replied "I can't say too much more, I'm afraid."

On 29 October 2009, current Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard announced that MechScape had been cancelled prior to its release, describing the decision as costing "tens of millions of pounds." Much of the game, including its engine, is intended to be reused in another project currently in development, Stellar Dawn. On 14 July 2010, Jagex officially announced the launch of, "a new science fiction MMO called Stellar Dawn."

8Realms

Main article: 8Realms

On 22 February 2011 Jagex announced a social strategy game scheduled for launch on 8 May 2011. Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard stated that the game has been "developed from the ground up to appeal to players with a passion for strategy gaming but who have been left underwhelmed by the social games available today" and will “push the technological boundaries of HTML games." The closed beta went live on 5 May 2011.

Transformers Online

Main article: Transformers Online

On 14 March 2011 Jagex announced a partnership with Hasbro to create an online game based on the Transformers IP due to launch in North America, Latin America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia in 2012.

Console games

In a March 2010 interview, Mark Gerhard was asked why Jagex have not released games to consoles. He replied, "The console manufacturers are the problem. Jagex is a Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo authorised developer, the reason why we don't have anything on the market is because all three are scared of the free-to-play model and that they are very protective over opening up their platforms. We've said to all three guys that we want to do it and we can do it, it's already working, but we need to have a global community. We're not going to segment off the 360 community from the PS3 or Wii etc. They've all said that they are fine to interact with a PC, but not another competing console and for us that's just not going to work. Why would we want to do that? RuneScape is free, what better value than to give users a completely free game and then the inevitable issue of platform costs come up, "How about five Euros per month?" No you're shooting yourself in the foot because users can get it on a PC for free, do you want to move people away from your platform? You can kind of see people going through the thought process and they understand how ridiculous it is. I suspect someone high up just said no. Until free MMOs appear on consoles, the respective platforms just aren't interesting to us. We are building a global community which is platform and language agnostic, there's no way we are breaking those rules for anyone. If I'm looking into my crystal ball I would say five years from now that (MMO support on consoles) will change as a necessity, as their market share continues to decline. Someone, someday will smell the coffee and hopefully we'll be the catalyst for that. We've done everything necessary to be there when they change their mind and we'll be the first to take advantage by offering consoles as an additional choice for our community. However having players pay for just being able to use their console for the service is just unimaginable, it's wrong."

Since then there has been little word about console development apart from a December 2010 vacancy which included "knowledge of other platforms including, but not limited to, Mac OS, Linux, Wii, PS3 and Xbox" as "desirable requirements."

Reception

Overall Jagex is a well-received company, ranking 59th in 2007 and 87th in 2008 on the Sunday Times' 100 Best Companies to Work For list.

In its 2008 profile of RuneScape, Develop concluded that: "In addition to being one of the most profitable, Jagex is also the UK’s largest independent developer by staff level, and one of the biggest employers. Its commercial model should make it a poster boy for the disintermediation of publishers and the ‘direct to consumer’ distribution channel in which so many developers place their hopes."

In the past Jagex had been accused of marketing RuneScape towards young children, despite having a 13+ age requirement. The age requirement has since been removed, allowing players under 13 in the game but only allowing them to communicate through a chat system known as Quick Chat; a database of preset sentences. Players may request removal from the Quick Chat system by providing proof of parental consent.

Gerhard has stated that he wishes to change the perception of RuneScape as a children's game, stating that "the real average age is 16. And there's this perception that there's 8 year old boys playing the game and it's mad."

See also

8Realms
Andrew Gower
FunOrb
Planetarion
RuneScape
Stellar Dawn
Transformers Online
War of Legends

External links

• Jagex.com
• Jagex Corporate Site
• Jagex credits list