Less than six months after angering its community by hiking the price of Runescape, Jagex has done it again with a new player survey asking players for their thoughts about some potentially very big changes to the game's pricing and feature set. With those thoughts now coming in like cow shit in a hurricane, Jagex has hastened to reassure players that the survey "is not a list of planned changes," but just some research.
The survey, shared on Reddit, floated numerous possible membership tiers for Runescape and Old School Runescape, sometimes both, along with various attached features—almost all of which, as noted by GamesRadar, would be more expensive than the existing pricing scheme.
And while Jagex promised that "any potential changes to membership options will not impact gameplay fairness or the availability of in-game content," some proposed changes, like a shorter AFK timer, specialized member worlds, the addition of in-game ads, and mobile-only access at lower subscription tiers, sound very much like they'd have an impact on gameplay and content availability.
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Some of the proposed membership tiers are really expensive, too. The top-tier plan seen in the survey, which includes access to both Runescape and Old School Runescape, with specialized member worlds, eight member characters, character name reservations, enhanced player support, and a "pause membership option," costs $32.49 per month, or just over $350 per year if you're willing to pay up annually.
Specific complaints are varied and many, but the overall reaction to the survey can be summed up by the title of this Reddit thread: "Jagex, you have just fucked up and done irreparable damage." That's pretty strong, but it does seem like an accurate measure of the mood, even among committed players. "I can shell out $100/yr for effectively the only game I play. Maybe even $120 for multiple characters," redditor rippel_effect wrote. "This is predatory as hell, though."
"I have been admittedly defending Jagex on a lot of shit recently," iamkira01 added. "I cannot defend this. I’m fucking flabbergasted."
In an update, Jagex justified the survey as "part of a long, multi-step process where players have been involved from the very beginning," and said it includes topics that are "controversial or polarizing" in such surveys because it's a good way to figure out how players really feel about things.
"Great community management isn’t just about listening to what players want; it’s also about being open to exploring uncomfortable topics so that we can make informed, player-driven decisions," Jagex wrote. "Surveys like this allow us to gather feedback on ideas before they even come close to becoming reality. They act as an important safeguard, ensuring that anything unpopular or misaligned with the community’s values is identified early."
With some of those "unpopular" ideas now very clearly identified, Jagex said it has "no plans to include ads in the base membership or to make ad-supported options a significant part of the game," and that it has "heard loud and clear that robust customer support is a baseline expectation." It also acknowledged that shorter AFK timers for non-premium players is a very unpopular idea, and said that and other ideas "were included to understand player preferences and were not intended to be concrete plans."
Which is not a guarantee that these things won't happen in the future: Regarding paid player support, for instance, Jagex said player feedback "makes it clear that this should remain a standard part of membership, and we’re taking that into account."
Despite the reassurances, it seems that some players have had enough: Some players in the subreddit are sharing images of account cancellations, while Old School Runescape YouTuber FlippingOldschool posted a video today predicting the changes "would destroy OSRS" if Jagex actually follows through on them.
For now, Jagex appears to be focused primarily on keeping a lid on things. "It may not always be easy, but these conversations are invaluable in helping us make decisions that benefit the long-term health of Old School RuneScape," the studio wrote. "We’ll keep you updated as we move forward."
