Jagex Games Studio (or
Jagex Ltd./Jagex Software/JAGeX) is a producer of
online computer games based in
Cambridge
, UK
. It
is best known for the three versions of its
RuneScape MMO, as well as for having
produced the
FunOrb games site.
Jagex has over 350 employees, with all content development,
management, and customer support provided 'in house'.
The company produces games exclusively written using the
Java language, its name standing
for "JAva Gaming EXperts". It has received a number of awards for
its achievements and is one of the highest profile developers in
the UK.
History
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, he began work on the
MMORPG
RuneScape alongside his brother Paul Gower.
RuneScape was released in January 2001. In December of
that year,
Andrew Gower, Paul Gower,
and Constant Tedder launched Jagex in its current incarnation, with
Constant Tedder as its
CEO.
Jagex Ltd formally acquired the Jagex name from Andrew Gower in
2001.
'The Jagex name and logo was
originally used by Jagex founder Andrew Gower for his Java/JAGeX
Audio+Graphics Extension.'
One year after its release,
RuneScape already had over one
million free accounts registered. The first tasks of the company
were to create a version of the game with extra features that
required a monthly fee, while still offering the free version, and
to develop partnerships with advertisers. Both tasks were achieved,
and the pay-to-play version of
RuneScape was released on
27 February 2002. It gained 5,000 subscriptions in the first week,
making
RuneScape one of the largest Java pay to play games
in the world.
As
RuneScape's popularity grew, so did Jagex. By December
11, 2003,
RuneScape had 65,000 paying members, and Jagex
had 29 employees. As of May 4, 2007,
RuneScape has over
6,000,000 active free accounts and over 1,000,000 active
pay-to-play subscribers, and Jagex currently has over 400
employees. In 2006, founders Andrew Gower and Paul Gower were
calculated to be worth
£32 million.
Jagex received an investment from Insight Venture Partners in
October 2005. The company had been self-funded before this
investment.
On October 23, 2007, Geoff Iddison, former European CEO of
PayPal, replaced Constant Tedder as CEO in order to
"accelerate international growth". Since Geoff Iddison was
appointed, Jagex has appeared in the press far more frequently than
it had under Tedder.
On February 27, 2008, Jagex released
FunOrb, an online
mini-games portal, with 18 launch games. Like
RuneScape,
FunOrb is written in Java and can be played from a
browser.
A "High Detail" version of
RuneScape was launched as a
"Live Beta" on July 1, 2008. The technologies involved have been
used across all of Jagex's new products since it's launch.
On July 25, 2008, Jagex released its first novel - RuneScape:
Betrayal at Falador, written by TS Church. To promote its release
10 of the pre-ordered copies were signed by TS Church, Andrew
Gower, Paul Gower, former Jagex CEO Geoff Iddison and the cover
artist. The book was published by Babel Interactive Ltd of
Worcestershire.
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
became a member of Tiga, the
United
Kingdom's game developer trade body, on April 15,
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."
Future development
In 2008 former Jagex CEO Geoff Iddison stated that
RuneScape "will be the main investment focus for Jagex for
the next five years". Jagex has registered UK trademarks and
various related domain names for the term "MechScape". Jagex's Head
of MechScape, Henrique Olifiers, announced at the 2008
E3 Media and Business Summit
that MechScape was a new MMO that Jagex were working on, expected
in the first quarter of 2009. He claimed it would be browser-based
like
RuneScape, but would be one or two steps beyond
RuneScape HD's level of technology. It would have a
science fiction theme and be aimed at an older audience. In an
interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Iddison stated that Jagex have
"got a very, very big investment into another MMO" and that it is
expected to be released "early next year, Q1 2009" - when asked if
it was the MechScape brand, he replied "I can't say too much more,
I'm afraid". On 18 June Iddison announced at the GameHorizon
conference that Jagex had "a brand new MMO due for launch in March
2009", although more recent statements places the estimated release
as "Spring 2009".
As well as working on completely new projects, Jagex continues to
develop its existing services. In relation to
FunOrb,
Jagex continues to release new games and intends to expand into the
mobile phone games market. In relation to
RuneScape, Jagex
continues to release new game content and has released versions of
RuneScape in
French,
German, and
Brazilian Portuguese. Jagex have also
spoken of plans for a third MMORPG in 2010 which might use
micro-payments.
Mark Gerhard, the current CEO of Jagex, has also spoken of plans
for Jagex to expand its products to
games consoles, stating that "we have
working proof of concepts on some of our products...the challenge
for us was if we could write a software package that would take our
code and output it to a C# version for the
360,
Wii and
PS3...we discovered that the answer was yes,
we can put our code on consoles."
On October 29, 2009, Gerhard confirmed 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.
Operation
Jagex has over 350 employees, working to update
RuneScape
and
FunOrb, and provide support for its customers. They
employ a wide variety of workers, including 3D modellers, game
developers, customer support, programmers, translators, quality
assurance, and managers.
They currently have offices in Cambridge and London
.
They
maintain around 170 servers for RuneScape in various
locations around the United States
, Canada
, Australia, Netherlands
, Sweden
, Finland
, Mexico
, Brazil
, Norway
, Republic of
Ireland
, Belgium
, Denmark
, New Zealand
, India
, and the
United
Kingdom, as well as several servers for the multiplayer
games on FunOrb.
The company has a dedicated Community Safety Team, who deal with
any issues related to child safety, real life threats,
cyberbullying and abuse. The team operates 24 hours a day and works
with
CEOP,
VGT, and
NCMEC.
The team also helps educate the players and parents about online
safety.
Membership & Industry Organisations
Jagex is a member of
TIGA and of
Games Eden.
It is also a collaborator 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.
At the 2008 Develop Conference they came 3rd in the Pub Quiz.
Awards and accomplishments
2007
2008
2009
- Ranked 29th "Most Successful Game Studio in the World" by
Develop Mag
Charity fund raising
Since 2004 Jagex has made donations to a number of national and
international charities. It has also run charity auctions for
signed merchandise.
In 2008
they donated artwork and prizes to the MMOCalendar, which
raises funds for the St. Jude
Children's Research Hospital
.
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 intellectual property 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.
However the age requirement has since been removed, allowing
players under 13 in the game but only allowing them to chat with
the Quick Chat System of preset sentences, unless given parental
consent to do otherwise. 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."
References
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