Interviews with Mod MMG (Jagex CEO)|
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IRC Nickname: [JC] Group: Emeritus Posts: 3320 Member No.: 23 Joined: December 30, 2007 Total Events Attended: 147    | Some may find these interesting, if you didnt allready know Mod MMG (Mark Michael Gerhard) is the new-ish Jagex CEO 
| QUOTE | Brendon Lindsey, Chief Editor, MMOLife Network: When we were talking earlier you said one major thing you wanted to do involved "RuneScape" and sort of going and, you know, changing the whole mentality that it's one of those MMO games for kids ...
Mark Gerhard, CEO, Jagex: Like, less than 4% of our players are under 13, and the average age is 16. There are two major spikes; one at 14, and one at 18. And then obviously secondarily one at 19 and weirdly one at 28. I guess that's all of us logging in ...
But 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. In some respects I'm really happy that some people get our age demo wrong, but it's also been damaging to us because people like John Smedley at “Free Realms” who admires “RuneScape,” and openly admit to knocking it off, claims “Free Realms” is “inspired by 'RuneScape.'”
But happily even he's got it wrong. You go to “Free Realms” which is very kiddy, very “Club Penguin,” and that's good news for us. And my worst possible position is that our 4% of under 13 players go play “Free Realms,” no worries, the rest of the community will not shed a tear. But the problem is he doesn't stop there, he goes on and keeps telling people that he copied “RuneScape” and this is a great game for tweens. So it's like "Maybe we should be quiet and just let people think it's a kids game..."
But to be honest it is 16 and up. The best way to describe it is that we actively internally say we're making a game we want to play. And whilst we're not gratuitous with our content -- it might be enjoyed by a younger audience -- but in terms of the gameplay and complexity and puzzling, we've aimed it at an adult mind, not a kid mind. And, I think, that's the message we believe internally and we shared it with our guys. But now, it's important we start saying that publicly.
I think that's one way we may have failed as a company. We just said "Let's make a cool game and who gives a damn what they say." We haven't actually defended ourselves or gone out and said, you know, this is bullshit. We've kind of gone "Well, whatever."
And that's because, you know, we never had a marketing function, or a PR function. The company had grown virally and we didn't think it was important. And clearly it is, because if you say nothing people make up their own version of the truth so we'll have to start doing that more, communicating with the rest of the world; and that's part of it. The first thing we'll say is "These are our actual players" and our players are going, "Well thank God, I'm 32 and I'm happy to hear people say this isn't a kid's game." Our players are our best evangelists, so letting them know what we're focusing on is helpful, but now we just have to let the rest of the gaming world know.
We're basically coming out of the dark and started defending ourselves; maybe that's the best way to put it. Refuting the nonsense out there.
Another thing a lot of people say about "RuneScape" when they talk about it is that it's got free-to-play content, but doesn't care about free-to-play players as much. Why do you think that is? Is it true?
Let me answer that two ways. That wasn't the case when Jagex started. When Andrew built "RuneScape," it was always going to be a free game. He would pay for the service by running adverts. It was the dotcom bubble burst that forced Jagex to go, "We can't even pay for infrastructure anymore, what are we going to do?" so we invented the Membership model and thankfully a lot of our loyal players went across and wanted premium content and paid for it. That's kind of been our runaway success, if you will.
But that wasn't the reason for being. "RuneScape" wasn't started because we wanted to make money and therefore went with the subscription model; it was fairly accidental. So the free game has always been an entirely free game and sort of the graduation path for members. What we argue is that, given 80% of our players are free anyway, it's our most ardent fans who convert to being members. About 20%. But the reality is that there are also free players who go, "This is enough, I'm more than happy." If I think of our top free-to-play player, it's a Dutch 21 year old called S Diamant Y, Sara to her friends, and she's played something like 14,599 hours, 34 minutes and counting.
She's maxed out all skills except one, prayer, which is at 94; 99's the max. And she's done all the quests. And she's never been a member for even 1 day. There are players who have done even more hours if you consider their time playing “RuneScape Classic.” So there are a lot of people who take pride in just playing the free game, and there's an epic amount of free content there. I don't know of any other games that have tens of thousands of hours of gameplay and are entirely free.
I suppose MMOs have more anyway, due to their social elements, but nevertheless... So the free game was, and is, certainly vitally important to us. It's kind of the proving ground. The problem was, a year or so ago, there was -- let me say confusion, as a subtle word -- as to what part of the business was important. I expect the CEO’s focus was just sort of on the profit and loss column, and all of the attention was sort of on "members members members and members conversions" and getting free players to convert to Members by putting members hooks in the free game. Unfortunately that had a really negative effect on the community, as you've taken what was an epic entirely free game and turned it into a sort of demo for the members game which was never the idea.
So unfortunately we had a year where we did that. One of my first orders of business in February was ripping that part out. There are various things we did to “monetize” the free players. Such as serving long-standing free players video ads. Something like 10 or 15 seconds. Which whilst profitable was simply wrong, not in the spirit of the free game, absolutely wrong. So one of my first orders of business was to rip that out; sort of get back to basics with what's important to us. We love all our players, we certainly do not want to treat our free players with contempt, you know.
Are you guys actively trying to go back and fix that, then?
We're making sure that the free game itself is being upgraded. Sort of upgrading the graphics and quests. So while we update our member content – with new quests and such -- we want to make sure the free players benefit at the same time.
There's also things we've done while building our other MMO "MechScape," like particle effects and specula lighting, and it's like "Well now that we have those why not put them into magic effects [in RuneScape]?" So I do expect in the next year a lot of things will be re-prioritized to focus on the players and improving the game. They tell us what they enjoy, and we'll make more of it.
We've been going through the game and re-working content not appreciated by the players to make sure they understand we care about what they invest their time in. There was this impression that, you know, "RuneScape" has had its day, so let's just get what we can out of it. But certainly the team and I believe this game has another decade or two of life in it. It's been ten years in the making, but its become an institution, and we're not going to stop investing in it now or ever.
Yeah, we're going to create new MMOs as well. And we've got FunOrb, which is sort of our R&D lab to experiment with new game ideas and mechanics and we'll keep doing that because it's fun and we can, but our main focus will be investing in "RuneScape" and growing that.
I know you were talking about how this year you guys were going to do a lot of things to upgrade "RuneScape" and make it better, will you guys be upgrading the graphics again?
We will be. We're actually doing quite a bit in the field. There's always this weird tension. If you ask a player "Would you want better graphics?" it's like "Yeah." But if given a choice between better graphics or content, what would you choose? Some would answer graphics, but we certainly find the one that has the loudest voices is more content. Once you've established a certain standard, it's just taken for granted. People don't login to check out the textures on your wall or ceiling, they want to login and have fun. So there really is a tension.
While we have a permanent R&D team looking to upgrade our graphics, sound, etc., but the real focus -- almost 80:20 -- is on content, evolving the game and keeping it fun.
But we are doing a a lot on graphics . We're making a lot of performance improvements so they can be more widely appreciated on older systems, as well. We're not quite looking to create a "RuneScape 3" if that's what the thought is; the real effort is on the content. And, if a change sucks, we'll pull it out. Everything has to pass the "awesome test," and if it doesn't re-work it so it passes, or take it out completely. So we're doing that as well.
Any other big updates people can expect to see content wise, then?
We are actually working on a whole new game mechanic. I can't give much away, but it could be an entire game in its own right, or just a skill, or both, who knows [laughs]. That will be for free and members. But, yeah, that should be this year hopefully, needs to be awesome though. I don't want to give it away though because it's really exciting and no one has done it so we're kind of keeping that one close to our chest.
Basically, this was going to be our 2010 game -- we were going to create another game -- but we said, this just ties in so nicely with "RuneScape" and it's cool, the community would love this, so let's not make it another game, let's just put this in the game.
Sorry for being so cryptic about it! [laughs]
Trust me, I'm used to it. Corporate for only a few months and already you're hiding secrets... [laughs]
[laughs] I know! But what I realized is that if we hide stuff and then say "Yeah we're going to build this and it's awesome and the most exciting thing we've ever done!" and then launch it and it's like "Eh?," we've almost set ourselves up to fail before we even started. So we don't want to spin it; we want it to be a big surprise. So it will be a skill, and we will introduce a whole new type of gameplay as well, but you'll see it when it's ready.
Frustrating for some, but it's sort of like getting a gift, isn't it? It's a surprise, but if you are expecting what you get it never quite hits the mark.
Is it hard to build up anticipation when you can't tell people what there is?
Our PR chap is certainly pulling his hair out. He's like, "People are asking about stuff, can I tell them this?" and we'll say, "No." Or he'll go, "I'm at this event what can I talk about?" and we'll say "None of this, none of that." Right now, our strategy is stealth, which is probably frustrating for him. [laughs] |
Sourced from MMOhubThere is also a previous interview Here and part 3 is due in around 2 days. Enjoy --------------------  Old awards watMost Mature & Most HonourableMost Dedicated| IRC Freak| Best EmeritusPlaceholder lolz |
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IRC Nickname: DyIan Group: Emeritus Posts: 1205 Member No.: 1638 Joined: January 15, 2009 Total Events Attended: 107 | oh mai
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IRC Nickname: Hyperion Group: Ex-Member Posts: 1636 Member No.: 978 Joined: June 23, 2008 Total Events Attended: 141 | Geez can't believe i read all that.
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Dragon boots:29 Whips:2 |
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IRC Nickname: `Nath Group: Guest Posts: 1897 Member No.: 1873 Joined: May 11, 2009 Total Events Attended: 70 | Wow, that was a great read, exciting times ahead for RS be the looks of it.
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IRC Nickname: Colin Group: Ex-Member Posts: 2039 Member No.: 68 Joined: December 31, 2007 Total Events Attended: 69 | | QUOTE (For Sooth @ May 28, 2009 01:13 am) | | Geez can't believe i read all that. |
Lol, same. Interesting to say the least. Can't wait for some exciting things to happen to RS.  --------------------   Proud WG member from January 2006 - Fall 2009 |
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IRC Nickname: [Randy] Group: Raid Leader Posts: 5065 Member No.: 16 Joined: December 29, 2007 Total Events Attended: 499 | Mod MMG is mah boy!
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IRC Nickname: Mickey Group: Emeritus Posts: 5305 Member No.: 48 Joined: December 30, 2007 Total Events Attended: 282 | Mod MMG is possibly the best thing to happen to Runescape. I'm proud of myself for reading it all too 
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IRC Nickname: [Randy] Group: Raid Leader Posts: 5065 Member No.: 16 Joined: December 29, 2007 Total Events Attended: 499 | Now that I think about it it seems like he's talking about mobilizing armies
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IRC Nickname: Lefty Group: Emeritus Posts: 3340 Member No.: 1055 Joined: June 30, 2008 Total Events Attended: 211 | | QUOTE (Kingrandy0 @ May 27, 2009 10:06 pm) | | Now that I think about it it seems like he's talking about mobilizing armies |
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IRC Nickname: [JC] Group: Emeritus Posts: 3320 Member No.: 23 Joined: December 30, 2007 Total Events Attended: 147 | I'm 95% sure it is not mobilizing armies for several reasons.
1) MA has always been planned to be part of RS, not a seperate game.
2) He says its a suprise and that no-one will expect it. MA has long been expected so I doubt this is what he is talking about.
3) MA has been complicated to say the least, from what I understand near the start of this year the original idea for it was thrown away and they started again, and since an average quest takes "between 6 months to a year to make" I am sure that this skill/new type of gameplay is not MA. I can't see MA coming out till 2010 if not later 
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IRC Nickname: Big_Al_002 Group: Guardian Posts: 1102 Member No.: 1777 Joined: March 21, 2009 Total Events Attended: 25 | notice how when he kind of took over good updates started to come in
i guess hes kinda like the obama of runescape
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Guardian from 4/20/09 to 8/4/09, then quit.
Back, Trial Guardian 6/12/11.
Proud To Have A Winddancir Original |
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IRC Nickname: Plano|Adam Group: Emeritus Posts: 1449 Member No.: 228 Joined: February 13, 2008 Total Events Attended: 107 | I thought MMG wasnt the best choice for CEO, he's lvl like 84 or something and has only been with jagex for like 2 years.
But he knows his shit, and I like where he is steering Runescape for the years to come.
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"If at first you don’t succeed, call it version 1.0" |
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IRC Nickname: Group: Banned Posts: 2 Member No.: 1405 Joined: October 26, 2008 Total Events Attended: 0 | | QUOTE (Theevildead2 @ May 27, 2009 08:08 pm) | But the real average age is 16.
...
But to be honest it is 16 and up. |
This proves the intelligence of Jagex staff. --------------------   |
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IRC Nickname: [JC] Group: Emeritus Posts: 3320 Member No.: 23 Joined: December 30, 2007 Total Events Attended: 147 | | QUOTE (WG_Keanu @ May 29, 2009 01:43 am) | | QUOTE (Theevildead2 @ May 27, 2009 08:08 pm) | But the real average age is 16.
...
But to be honest it is 16 and up. |
This proves the intelligence of Jagex staff.
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Or perhaps your lack of it? He is saying the Average age of an RS player is 16 (probably is less because so many people lie about it anyway) however he thinks that the target market for Runescape should be 16+ Pretty safe to assume that since like a few sections of the article are dedicated to how he feels that RS' image as a kids game needs to change. -------------------- Old awards watMost Mature & Most HonourableMost Dedicated| IRC Freak| Best EmeritusPlaceholder lolz |
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IRC Nickname: Group: Banned Posts: 2 Member No.: 1405 Joined: October 26, 2008 Total Events Attended: 0 | | QUOTE (Theevildead2 @ May 28, 2009 08:18 am) | | He is saying the Average age of an RS player is 16 (probably is less because so many people lie about it anyway) however he thinks that the target market for Runescape should be 16+ |
He didn't say should. -------------------- |
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IRC Nickname: Wayne|Eregion2 Group: Emeritus Posts: 3087 Member No.: 156 Joined: January 25, 2008 Total Events Attended: 8 | If they're aiming RuneScape at highschool and college students, they must think we've severely retarded (position may be withdrawn pending 2010 game updates).
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IRC Nickname: [JC] Group: Emeritus Posts: 3320 Member No.: 23 Joined: December 30, 2007 Total Events Attended: 147 | | QUOTE (WG_Keanu @ May 29, 2009 05:27 am) | | QUOTE (Theevildead2 @ May 28, 2009 08:18 am) | | He is saying the Average age of an RS player is 16 (probably is less because so many people lie about it anyway) however he thinks that the target market for Runescape should be 16+ |
He didn't say should.
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| QUOTE | | And whilst we're not gratuitous with our content -- it might be enjoyed by a younger audience -- but in terms of the gameplay and complexity and puzzling, we've aimed it at an adult mind, not a kid mind. |
Is that not pretty clear? you see the article probably is aimed at people who have a brain and dont need every little part of it explained to them  -------------------- Old awards watMost Mature & Most HonourableMost Dedicated| IRC Freak| Best EmeritusPlaceholder lolz |
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IRC Nickname: ``Aaron Group: Ex-Member Posts: 1055 Member No.: 149 Joined: January 21, 2008 Total Events Attended: 34 | | QUOTE (Big Al 002 @ May 27, 2009 11:55 pm) | notice how when he kind of took over good updates started to come in
i guess hes kinda like the obama of runescape |
uh......... *starts to type a long response* uh.. no comment --------------------    |
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IRC Nickname: Bam Group: Emeritus Posts: 2762 Member No.: 131 Joined: January 20, 2008 Total Events Attended: 111 | couldn't care less about him...
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IRC Nickname: bto Group: Emeritus Posts: 3815 Member No.: 196 Joined: February 3, 2008 Total Events Attended: 332 | Eh we'll see what happens.
I have much more expectations for this guy than the previous CEO.
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bto
Ex-WG Warlord
"It is our direction, not our intentions, that lead us to our destinations." |
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IRC Nickname: [JC] Group: Emeritus Posts: 3320 Member No.: 23 Joined: December 30, 2007 Total Events Attended: 147 | Part 3:
http://mmohub.org/news/interview-mechscape...s-and-2009/307/
Mainly about mechscape 
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IRC Nickname: Group: Banned Posts: 2 Member No.: 1405 Joined: October 26, 2008 Total Events Attended: 0 | | QUOTE (Theevildead2 @ May 28, 2009 05:34 pm) | | QUOTE | | And whilst we're not gratuitous with our content -- it might be enjoyed by a younger audience -- but in terms of the gameplay and complexity and puzzling, we've aimed it at an adult mind, not a kid mind. |
Is that not pretty clear? you see the article probably is aimed at people who have a brain and dont need every little part of it explained to them |
Well that's just BS in itself. Unless Jagex has just confused their definition of "adult". -------------------- |
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IRC Nickname: [JC] Group: Emeritus Posts: 3320 Member No.: 23 Joined: December 30, 2007 Total Events Attended: 147 | Some may also be interested in this:
http://channelsun.sun.com/video/chapter+3+...ion/25083239001
The runescape/Jagex related stuff is from 12 min onwards. There is a particularily good looking 'promo vid' for runescape in there which I am hoping to get put on the Jagex YT channel.
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IRC Nickname: Nirvanas Group: Ex-Member Posts: 334 Member No.: 240 Joined: February 16, 2008 Total Events Attended: 24 | Sweet post theevil, was interesting
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Safe as fuck mate, safe as fuck |
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IRC Nickname: Gibble00 Group: Emeritus Posts: 775 Member No.: 100 Joined: January 3, 2008 Total Events Attended: 9 | Finally read this, thought it was interesting. *wonders about the last part*
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