iammky said: “Write an article about Jagex’s seemingly constant attempts to profit from their game. Auras, katanas, hordes of bots, etc. All they want is money.”

There is a large debate going around these days how “Jagex doesn’t care anymore, they just want money!”

My main point to this article is going to be that Jagex has every right to profit on their own game. There is nothing wrong with it. Besides, why wouldn’t they? Who can blame them? Jagex is a company, not someone working out of a basement in their spare time.

However, whether they should do certain things is in the long run the decision of the players.

Aura’s/Members loyalty program

The whole loyalty rewards program has been a part of the game for a long time now, ever since they changed the membership price from $5 a month to $5.95. The deal was that if you paid for membership for 1 year straight (with a 2 week grace period to get it back if you lose it) the price goes back down to $5 a month.

What Jagex did was they expanded this program into a tangible reward you get for buying membership. They aren’t charging more for their service, just adding more of an incentive to keep your membership active. None of these rewards are game changing, and everyone has an equal chance to get all the rewards. They give no one an unfair advantage over another player. It’s not like you have the option to get GP or armor.

The Katana

Many companies use a free gift to add incentive to buying their product. These gifts can be anything: buy one get one free, a mail in rebate, a ticket to a raffle for some expensive item, etc. I don’t see how what Jagex is doing with the Katana is any different.

There are multiple reasons why this isn’t Jagex just ‘whoring for money’. This is not a micro-transaction. You aren’t paying a single cent more for the card then it cost before the offer was there, the price did not change. The payments are not online. There is no reason to expect micro-transactions coming in the future.

The main argument against the Katana is not that it’s Jagex looking to make money, it’s that not everyone has an equal chance to obtain it. Although this argument is valid, Jagex has stated that it will be available in multiple ways, in multiple countries.

The Bots

Jagex has voiced that they do not support bots many times. In the long term a legitimate player will play a lot longer then a botted account. However, with bots so out of hand, the legitimate players are quitting because the botters are diminishing the value of their achievements and that Jagex is doing nothing about it.

Jagex is in fact doing something about it. Not only do they ban hundreds to thousands of bots a day, they are going after those that create the bots, essentially cutting it off at the source. This is Jagex responding as a company, taking legal action against those that break the terms and conditions of playing the game. When you agree to a T&S, it is a legal contract, not some gibberish put there to annoy you.

Once Jagex takes care of the people who make the bots, they can take care of those that use the bots much more effectively.

Mod Paul on Botting: [Forums][Image]

“The short termist view is that banning bots is bad for our financials. However these users who bot are quite clearly users who want to shorten their gaming experience anyway, so I’d argue we’d probably lose them sooner or later anyway and probably if we favoured them it would be at the expense of people who were planning to stick around for longer” - Paul Gower.

The rest

Now that I’ve taken care of the main points, I’d like to expand on the title of this article. Jagex is a company. They have responsibilities as a company: paying employees, bills, etc.

I agree that they can be a little too secretive at times and they could be more straightforward about things that are a serious issue, like botting. However, what fun would the game be if we knew every single update planned for the next year or more? There would be no guessing, no suggestions, no excitement. It just wouldn’t be fun.

When Jagex releases updates like “NPC’s now appear over marker plants” and “Cannons can no longer be set up at the Grand Exchange”, they are often misinterpreted as Jagex supporting botting.

What they are really doing, however, is making the game how it should be, how it should have been in the first place. These things don’t only stop bots, but they interrupt from legitimate player’s game experience. This is a step in the right direction for Jagex as a company.

Jagex cannot listen to every single player. It is impossible given the sheer numbers. Besides, no matter what the issue is, there will never be an agreement between everyone. Everyone has differing opinions.

Conclusion

Jagex is a company that is supported by their players. No matter what decision they make, there will always be those who disagree. They cannot always be public with their business practices or plans for future content. However, they seem to be alienating a large amount of players with their secretiveness. They cannot always be the public figure that people want them to be.

Written by: The Orange

I appreciate thoughts, responses, and ideas on what to write on next!

What are your thoughts?