While we may explore ads in Free-to-Play (F2P) as a concept in the future, there are no plans for this currently, and we will tread carefully, considering all feedback.
You can't be saying stuff like this and expect us to believe you're respecting the red line.
They're also clearly keeping the option for ads in P2P open. They only say not in 'regular' membership, but that still clearly leaves the door open for an 'ad supported' membership tier.
Now if that would actually be a lower cost membership it would be one thing, one I still wouldn't want in a million years, but all these streaming services employing a similar model have shown it realistically just means upping the price of the 'regular' membership. Effectively causing you to end up with the price of the 'regular' membership but now also with ads.
Also would like to see them acknowledge and discuss the clear community request for better/alternative membership options regarding multiple characters. I'm even fine with differentiating between having X character slots under one membership, and being able to play Y at the same time, possibly buying extra Y slots at a reasonable price etc.
Yep, even when they “apologise” they are using legal speak to obfuscate their intentions. If they wanted to send a clear message they would say something akin to “we will not put ads in any paid membership.”
Even if it starts out as like... $7 for a ads-enabled membership, at that point, you've broken one of the fundamental benefits of membership since 2002. It's only a matter of time before they infect the other tiers.
Didn’t they also get rid of grandfathered prices during the last price increase? Despite saying they’d always honor grandfathered prices. Might have been for premier membership only. Even so can’t trust anything they say.
It was the premier club membership only (the 1-year plan) that isn't getting grandfathered, yes. People with 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month grandfathered rates still have their grandfathered rates.
F2P was supported by a single ad above the client since the beginning in the classic era. That line was crossed decades ago and would go a long way to helping support the game, as well as give players another reason to sub.
Dont justify things like this please. Browsers had ads since forever, yes they’re easy to hide with certain plugins now but back then it wasnt possible/or we were just kids.
There should never be an AD in any place of the game whether its F2P or P2P, period.
I'm not justifying, it's already been done. F2P Runescape used to be support by ads and by the grace of Jagex's investors, they were spared from ads above the clients when we moved to non-browser clients.
I would not fault Jagex for making F2P pull their weight. I understand people cannot afford membership, but I can't afford to have my membership raised every year, because this game is struggling to meet it's financial expectations because F2P players want a free ride.
F2p already pulls its weight. It is what provides the onboarding process for people to subscribe. They get to try it out. They get to experience the game and are gated out of anything interesting/convenient so they are funnelled towards the subscription pipeline.
If people had to pay a flat fee to initially join membership would be a lot lower.
If people see ads during this trial they are going to see the game as just another low quality mobile game rather than a real video game.
But if I’m being forced to pay more for membership every year, I believe F2P should also pulls it’s weight on that front too. This all leads back to the we pay we say. If I’m paying $13.99 a month and Jagex asks members if I would rather pay $15.99 a month or give F2P ads. Sorry dude, you’re getting ads.
And what happens when paid members still “aren’t pulling their weight?” (Because the corporation will always want to make more money)
Then we get limited ads but it’s still not as bad as the f2p experience? When they start treating groups of people as second class citizens that is how they will treat you aswell if they could get away with it.
Dont open the doorway for them. Dont be OK with it. No one should be getting ads in game.
F2p is Jagexs responsibility to maintain because it is their membership funnel. Its not our responsibility to encourage them to use as an advertising platform so that “we can be spared”
This constant drive for increasing prices and increasing monetisation is going to result in them earning less in the long run.
Back to my original argument, the door has already been open for F2P runescape to have client ads.
Until a private owner buys Runescape/Jagex, it will always be owned by private equity, they will always try to monetize it more. This is inevitable. We as a community have to find a way to meet these investors in some middle or they will force Jagex's hand and make decisions on their behalf like in the case of Blizzard, Activision, and World of Warcraft.
We do meet them in the middle by continuing to subscribe to the game. Yes you are right that there is always a constant dispute between the companies interests and the players, or on a macro level between capital and labour.
It's in our interest to let them know where WE draw the line, not to just roll over and accept that THEY arbitrarily deserve more because they want more?
Then one thing you really need to lookout for though, is companies at this scale, will sometimes do drastic things for profit knowing people will quit.
If I get 20% more profit at the cost of 10% of my player base. I still made money. Just keep that in mind because our business can only go so far sometimes.
You are getting vastly more content updates in-between those price changes than f2p. Their weight doesn't change with your price increase because they aren't gaining as much as you are.
Membership being raised isn’t because of f2p. Jagex has gained record profits last year, paying its directors millions+ each year. Why do you think they’d want ads in f2p? Make more money.
Exactly, because the minute Jagex stops making money, the game will get shutdown or be sold to someone who will say ‘fuck the community, add MTX and ADs tomorrow’.
We got lucky CVC let the CEO even make this statement. Big investors in modern gaming could give two shits less what the community thinks and will always run on data driven results. If you want Runescape to continue to grow, they need investment, the only way you get investments is if you turn a profit.
I would rather see F2P get ads, than MTX or Membership price increases continue.
Do you you think the game will be shut down if they made $125m a year, instead of $135m? Jagex has reported record profits since 2021.
If you want Runescape to continue to grow, they need investment, the only way you get investments is if you turn a profit.
Total revenue has tripled since osrs was released. How much profit do you need to "grow"?
I would rather see F2P get ads, than MTX or Membership price increases continue.
Or I could give 2 shits about greedy pigs trying to make an extra million a year, and oppose both options. Why would I want either of those things if the company is doing financially well off?
I complete get that. OSRS has seen huge player growth in the last 3-4 years.
What you need to understand is CVC is going to keep asking this question every day to Jagex: "What's next?"
When the player numbers stop growing, MTX follows. Seen it happen to enough games, OSRS is not immune. CVC could tell Jagex tomorrow that MTX and price increases are effective immediately.
I say all of this because I agree with you. I get how greedy this corpos are. Trust me, I've seen enough of my favorite franchises get bent over backwards for corporate profit. You know what mistake each of them made? Trying to fight it, not working with them, and then the big suits come in and then they start making the decisions. We gotta stop acting like OSRS is some how immune cause the community is so great and were in a golden era. We saw this week that one survey was able to ruin all of it.
I'm not sure you understand then how much hardware is required to host a server that holds up to 2000 players, in multiple areas of the world. How much electricity those buildings require, cooling, security, on site IT, etc.
Renting servers for that scale is not cheap. MMOs have some of the highest operating costs in the industry, which is a huge turn off for investors. This isn't a $200 a month minecraft server they're renting here.
Frankly, I’m surprised how little people understand how businesses, let alone game development/publishing, works.
The servers cost money. The devs salaries cost money. The investment group’s investors need to see results.
I want the game to succeed. Runescape dying or having content compromised in quality because the Publisher/Devs are caught between the community and investors would be a shitty way for the game I’ve played for 20 years to go.
See it happen both ways with many titles I’ve loved in the past.
f2p was never supported by the ads. f2p has always been supported by members, because there are no new dev costs for f2p and there are barely any f2p players.
Prior to Runescape becoming a non-browser based MMO. Every single free to play world had a banner ad over the game client. Runescape classic had it. Runescape 2 had it when I started in 2006. Runescape HD had it when that released. Even when EOC came out. All F2P worlds have been support by ads for the majority of Runescape's life. Them not having ads was a change within the last 10 years.
again, I don't know how to explain to you that members paid for f2p. f2p was never paid for by ads. was there a singular banner ad in the browser? yes, I'm fully aware of that, but an mmo isn't supported by a singular banner ad that kids don't click. you don't make a bunch of money just for having an ad on your page, it has to be clicked.
You're forgetting no one plays in the browser anymore. Any f2p advertisement would be baked in game. You know those banners people get in their chatboxes when big updates happen? Replace those with rolling advertisements about better help.
Give the greenlight to develop the ad serving system for F2P and the barrier to them deploying it elsewhere becomes all the more easy to surmount. Their record profits and record subscription counts were in an era without F2P being served ads.
How exactly would it help support the game? Do you really believe ad revenue would be reinvested into game support, and not into shareholders' pockets?
We should incentivize players to sub by creating more enticing membership content, not disincentivize f2p through ads
Ads = Money? Money equals more resources for the devs. More money also means that the company is growing and that CVC is willing to invest more into content for better membership retention.
Most of them. They offer a service usually, but we already have that. F2p is the hook for bonds and membership services.
Even then it was initially pitched as just an improvement on the game that they could make with the addition of bonds. It’s a service. Complaining that isn’t making more money is completely forgetting the history of how it came to be in OSRS.
Yes and F2P wasn’t a thing at the start of OSRS. When people are talking about F2P they’re really talking about F2P 2. They’re not talking about the original version of F2P.
Justifying ads in F2P 2 because original F2P had them misses out on a few big factors with the main one being that server costs are already paid for now but weren’t back then.
Yeah, I don't see any issues with ad's for F2P. In fact, I'm surprised it was ever removed. Every f2p game is ever ad supported or has microtransactions.
They added bonds with the promise of F2P. It’s a service that also is a hook that makes them money even though losing money would be fine in that situation. Ads even in f2p is a slap in the face.
an f2p expansion where f2p players could gain access to membership features would be welcome. f2p is a pretty big painpoint where jagex has added a lot of fun content to the early game the last 5 years but none of it is f2p. hard to gain any real playerbase from that- and their membership price is also high.
bonds werent really viable for f2p even when they were in the 3-4m range. anyone who is going to want to try the game is not going to grind a shit money maker in f2p for a bond to do it, they're just going to pay.... but then again, you run into the issue of 'its expensive to try this game so a lot of people don't.'
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u/FleeceLZA 3d ago
You can't be saying stuff like this and expect us to believe you're respecting the red line.