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RuneScape CEO: We want to be bigger than World of Warcraft · The Game Business Show

0:00
SPEAKER_00: It has been painful, exactly as we thought it would be.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: We do make less money now on RuneScape because of it.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: I have no intention of going beyond RuneScape with this business.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: At least while I'm here.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: So much so that we changed the name of the company.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: About half of the active members for Old School RuneScape have joined Old School
0:18
SPEAKER_00: as their first RuneScape game.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I see.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: They've chosen to play the 2007 version of a classic game as their first RuneScape experience.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: The dream is that we're not the number two biggest MMO brand in the world,
0:30
SPEAKER_00: we're the number one.
0:34
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to The Game Business Show.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: This week's edition is sponsored by WeHype.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: It's actually quite a fitting sponsor because today's show is with Jagex,
0:42
SPEAKER_01: which is one of the developers releasing a game
0:44
SPEAKER_01: during this hyper-competitive September that's coming up.
0:47
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0:50
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0:53
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0:57
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0:58
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1:01
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1:02
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1:06
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1:08
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1:10
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1:15
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1:17
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1:21
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1:23
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1:26
SPEAKER_01: They'll also be at Gamescom if you'd like to chat with them there.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: And now, back to our episode.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Last year, I met up with Jagex CEO John Bellamy at Gamescom.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: It was a brief chat where we discussed the firm's plans
1:37
SPEAKER_01: to radically transform its monetization strategy.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: It was all about trying to win back fans to the original RuneScape,
1:44
SPEAKER_01: a plan that Bellamy admitted would probably lead to a drop in revenue.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Since then the company has not only implemented those changes,
1:51
SPEAKER_01: but they've also announced plans to take RuneScape spin-off Dragon Wilds to console
1:55
SPEAKER_01: and are aggressively looking to expand into new territories.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: They've also rebranded themselves slightly as Jagex the RuneScape company,
2:02
SPEAKER_01: just so it's 100% clear what they're all about going forward.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: They even sold off one non-moonscape game,
2:08
SPEAKER_01: Scum, alongside its developer Gamepyers to fellow UK studio Splash Damage.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: So, lots to catch up on.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: And as Jagex is very close to offices here at The Game Business,
2:17
SPEAKER_01: I popped over to her studio to chat more with Bellamy about what's going on.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: And here is that conversation.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: John.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Hello, sir.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to The Game Business Show.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: Our most popular guest, according to the metrics.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you can't start like that.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: What do I say to this?
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Great.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm really happy to hear it.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Genuinely, I think a lot of RuneScape players saw that one.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I've ever...
2:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I've even told you at the time.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: I once applied for a job.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: We're in your offices in Cambridge.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: I actually applied for a job at RuneScape when I was at university.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: What job was it?
2:47
SPEAKER_01: It was one of the...
2:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you still do them.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: It was a community role where you had to answer the phones to...
2:54
SPEAKER_01: I guess it's answering the phone.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: The support role.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: The support role, basically.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: We're stuck.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: How do I level up this?
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
2:59
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't get it.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I should say sorry, but that's
3:04
SPEAKER_00: far detached from where we are.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to do it now, the door's wide open.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, last time we caught up, you were changing.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: The big thing we were talking about was how you were changing the monetization of RuneScape.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: The idea was to win back the fans, even if that came at the expense of revenue.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: So my question now is,
3:20
SPEAKER_01: you were experimenting 12 months ago,
3:22
SPEAKER_01: but we're almost 12 months on from that interview.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: Have you won back players and has it impacted revenue?
3:27
SPEAKER_00: It has impacted revenue, not positively, but exactly as we thought that it would.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: So RuneScape revenue is down quite a large chunk.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: The membership has now stabilized for the first time in about four years.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think part of the thinking about this,
3:40
SPEAKER_00: and I said this on a video to the community at the time,
3:42
SPEAKER_00: part of the thinking about this decision,
3:44
SPEAKER_00: the reason why I took it,
3:45
SPEAKER_00: the reason why we got the backing,
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Above me is because I don't think there was a legitimate way to reset the standards
3:52
SPEAKER_00: for the game that would allow us to revert to growth,
3:54
SPEAKER_00: to like even have a shot at coming back to growth.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: I felt like that was the hygiene hit that we needed to take.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: And it was painful and it has been painful exactly as we thought it would be.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: We do make less money now on RuneScape because of it,
4:07
SPEAKER_00: even with membership prices slightly higher than they were this time last year.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: That's the reality.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: I think setting the table for being able to grow is not the same as expecting growth
4:18
SPEAKER_00: to come as a result of setting the table.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: You need to put something on the table to bring people in.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: And so we've set the table,
4:25
SPEAKER_00: we've done the job,
4:25
SPEAKER_00: We've taken the pain,
4:26
SPEAKER_00: and we've spent the last year not just removing that monetization layer,
4:29
SPEAKER_00: but overhauling so much of the clunkiness and the pain within the game.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: The guy who runs our RuneScape studio now has been here for, I think, 13 years.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: He's been a RuneScape player for 20.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: He knows this far better than even I do.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And so the person calling the shots on how to bring this thing back to life was
4:45
SPEAKER_00: a player in its golden age.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: And so I can think of nobody better to do it.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: So he's done a great job,
4:50
SPEAKER_00: not least with removing the monetization stuff,
4:52
SPEAKER_00: but also just getting the game into a healthy position.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: Less daily, less FOMO, less of the rubbish.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: It's now in a really healthy spot.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: And so I've been told very clearly I'm not to give anything away on this podcast,
5:04
SPEAKER_00: but I think on October the 3rd at RuneFest,
5:08
SPEAKER_00: we'll be announcing our equivalent of putting a feast on the table
5:12
SPEAKER_00: to really actively win people back.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: And that'll be happening much sooner than I think many people expect.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Is this part of the integrity roadmap that you laid out?
5:20
SPEAKER_00: So that was the laying of the table.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: The integrity roadmap was all about cleaning up the mess and making sure
5:25
SPEAKER_00: that we were ready to say,
5:27
SPEAKER_00: now is the time to come back to our game and here's a great reason to do it.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: That moment's about to come.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm interested how the conversation was with sort of your investors,
5:38
SPEAKER_01: your backers,
5:39
SPEAKER_01: when you said, right,
5:40
SPEAKER_01: we're gonna,
5:41
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:41
SPEAKER_01: potentially lose some money or maybe not lose money,
5:43
SPEAKER_01: but see a reduction in revenue and that kind of stuff.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Was everyone just immediately on board?
5:47
SPEAKER_01: How was that?
5:48
SPEAKER_00: It was a long conversation.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: It was a conversation I think that started practically before I'd even joined.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: And so it was a, look,
5:55
SPEAKER_00: I think if we really want to swing for the fences, this is what it would look like.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: And the team above me all wanted to swing for the fences and accepted
6:03
SPEAKER_00: that this was going to be short to medium term pain.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: And they all agreed that we don't expect to see a turnaround happen inside of 12 months.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: This is a longer term thing,
6:12
SPEAKER_00: but we're taking this investment and this risk because You can't continue
6:17
SPEAKER_00: to do exactly what we're currently doing and expect different behavior.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And so we would rather own a slightly smaller thing that is growing and healthy than
6:26
SPEAKER_00: a larger thing that has been on a five year decline.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: And so they have their own calculus that I'm sure helps them say yes to that.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: But at least for us, that just felt like the right thing to do.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: As a success of old school Woundscape,
6:38
SPEAKER_01: does that Would you have been able to do this if you didn't have that in
6:41
SPEAKER_01: the background?
6:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I mean, who knows?
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Would I even be here?
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Would it look like this?
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Would you and I be having this chat?
6:47
SPEAKER_00: I've no idea.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: There's so much like butterfly effect stuff that happens in there.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Let me put it this way.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: If the RuneScape studio was a standalone studio and it wasn't part of
6:56
SPEAKER_00: the RuneScape franchise,
6:57
SPEAKER_00: it wasn't part of Jagex, would this have still been the right move?
7:01
SPEAKER_00: I believe so.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Would it have been under this structure and this setup?
7:04
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: I still would do what we did.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: I missed your anniversary event, um, which you had quite a year.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: I've just, I heard you had like in the most, on the busiest June on record as well.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: With like, was it State of Play?
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: Summer Game Fest, Nintendo, it's just madness.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: But I read an article and they mentioned the RS-25 strategy.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: What's, tell me, tell me what that is.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: The RS25 strategy is we've been around for 25 years.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: We have a strategy this year and we make RuneScape.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what it is.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: I think it's slightly more than that.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: If I give you the sort of more level-headed answer,
7:40
SPEAKER_00: there's a bunch of firsts that are happening.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: RS25 is all about three things.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: It's about turning around RuneScape and getting it into a stable state so it's not
7:46
SPEAKER_00: on a decline,
7:47
SPEAKER_00: and that's our smaller product, but it deserves a great life ahead of it.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: Give it that shot.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: We've just talked about it.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: For old school RuneScape,
7:54
SPEAKER_00: I think we broke just about every record we've ever had across every major metric in
7:58
SPEAKER_00: the last 12 months multiple times.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: It's on an unbelievable kind of heater.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Been really happy with how that game's performed.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: It was about taking old school from a scrappy but very successful studio to making
8:12
SPEAKER_00: a ton of investments or committing to a ton of investments.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: And I think we said publicly,
8:16
SPEAKER_00: correct me if I'm wrong,
8:17
SPEAKER_00: We're putting about £200 million invested into our games starting
8:24
SPEAKER_00: in its 25th anniversary for the next couple of years.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: And that's like a profound level of investment that will set old school,
8:30
SPEAKER_00: set it up to turn into a stalwart And then the third major element of RuneScape 25,
8:38
SPEAKER_00: at least from a game's perspective, was launching Dragon Wilds into FCL.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: So full content launch that's happening in September.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: And with that moment comes a bunch of firsts.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: With that comes our first time in China,
8:50
SPEAKER_00: our first time in Japan,
8:51
SPEAKER_00: our first time in Korea,
8:52
SPEAKER_00: our first time translated into those languages,
8:54
SPEAKER_00: our first time on console, all three platforms.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: All coming at the same time on that launch day.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: It will be the third stablemate of a growing franchise.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: RS-25 was really about doubling down on the RuneScape franchise.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Anything that isn't that is now gone.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: Anything that is that is front and center.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: And those are the three big drives.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: I was going to talk about all these things.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: It's good that you sort of set... Oh, I teared you up.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: No, perfect.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: And you only started, like, just over a year ago.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: This is a bit crazy.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about the fact that you are about RuneScape,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: because you obviously have Scum with GamePyres,
9:25
SPEAKER_01: which you owned a really hardcore online survival game.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: We talked about this last time.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a really cool game.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: And you sold it.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Is there no room for anything outside of RuneScape?
9:33
SPEAKER_01: This is fully the vision for the future.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the answer's always never say never,
9:37
SPEAKER_00: but at least I have no intention of going beyond RuneScape with this business,
9:41
SPEAKER_00: at least while I'm here.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: So much so that we changed the name of the company to Jagex, The RuneScape Company.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: That is what I want us to be.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: And it is what we are now, legitimately.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Our team size is less because we have fewer studios and fewer products
9:53
SPEAKER_00: that aren't RuneScape, but focus is through the roof.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really liberating to be able to do one thing better
9:59
SPEAKER_00: than anybody else in the world, and that is what we should be doing.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: No regrets.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about Dragon Ball.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: What have you learnt from the launch of Dragon Balls?
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Don't underestimate this IP.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: Do not count Runescape out by any means.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: I think we've seen so much growth across old school and so much strength in Runescape, the game.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of people that I think don't quite realise How successful it's been in
10:21
SPEAKER_00: the last few years.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think even for us,
10:24
SPEAKER_00: there is this little voice,
10:25
SPEAKER_00: or there was this little voice at the back of the head,
10:28
SPEAKER_00: which was sometimes asked as a question our way,
10:30
SPEAKER_00: which is, when do you go beyond RuneScape?
10:33
SPEAKER_00: And there's a whole bunch of assumptions underneath that question
10:36
SPEAKER_00: that I actually really don't like.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Dragonwilds, I think, was a...
10:41
SPEAKER_00: A wonderful validation that those questions don't need to be asked.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Actually, this is one of the most loved and biggest IPs on Earth.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the biggest and most established games IPs of all time.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: I heard a stat the other day,
10:52
SPEAKER_00: if we were a country,
10:52
SPEAKER_00: we'd be the fourth largest in the world, which is pretty It's pretty insane.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Dragon Worlds was an example of what bringing this IP and translating it in
11:00
SPEAKER_00: a really effective way to a new platform and a new sort of genre can achieve.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: I think we thought that game was going to sell about 200,000 units in early access.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: We're at about 1.3 million now.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, since the beginning of this month, we sold about another 100,000 units.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: When we go to full content launch,
11:15
SPEAKER_00: it will be a meaningful number beyond that because of all the new platforms.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: So don't count RuneScape out,
11:20
SPEAKER_00: but also you can absolutely bank on our transferability to other places
11:25
SPEAKER_00: and other platforms.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: I think that's unlocked something we didn't fully internalize,
11:30
SPEAKER_00: but maybe hoped for about a year ago.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And now there's no avoiding the fact that this thing has legs.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: So as part of this,
11:36
SPEAKER_01: you're talking about taking it to RuneScape to other places,
11:39
SPEAKER_01: you've done this APAC deal, right?
11:41
SPEAKER_01: So you bring in RuneScape to Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: How are you performing in those markets currently?
11:49
SPEAKER_00: On Dragon Wild specifically?
11:50
SPEAKER_01: Just RuneScape,
11:51
SPEAKER_01: how is that
11:52
SPEAKER_00: as a...
11:52
SPEAKER_00: RuneScape's had zero presence in those countries for the last 25 years.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: And aren't you like the second biggest MMO in the...
11:58
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for pointing it out.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: Without those markets.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: Imagine if we'd cracked those other ones, would it still be that center?
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: That's a fair question.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have absolutely no presence.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: And part of that is because of what we make.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: We make these kind of Monty Python style humor, slightly self-deprecating.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: One guy, one day a guy 15 years ago said, we're not doing horses.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: And since then,
12:17
SPEAKER_00: we've never made a horse in RuneScape,
12:19
SPEAKER_00: despite it being a medieval point and click game.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: That kind of Blackadder, Rowan Atkinson, very British style of humor resonates in a few places.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: It resonates really well in Finland.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: It resonates very well in Japan, as we've recently learned.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: It resonates very well in the Netherlands and in the US.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: It's been very Western world centric.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: That hasn't always resonated culturally in other nations,
12:37
SPEAKER_00: or at least that's what we just assumed.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And then you release a product in China for the first time a week ago.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And we've seen,
12:44
SPEAKER_00: I think,
12:45
SPEAKER_00: 41% of day one sales of Dragon Wilds on the day that we released were sold in China.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Since then, it's been more than 20%.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: And so there's enough there.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And we have our fantastic partners helping to make that happen in Agora.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: There's enough there for us to say, look,
13:00
SPEAKER_00: maybe our long held suspicions about cultural fit aren't as true
13:03
SPEAKER_00: as we thought they were.
13:04
SPEAKER_01: I think in the age of digital where everyone can sort of,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: you know,
13:08
SPEAKER_01: even we know how big K-pop's become in this country, like,
13:12
SPEAKER_01: the fact that we can access this stuff now,
13:13
SPEAKER_01: people are interested in those new worlds.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: We've seen Chinese content do very well in the West lately,
13:18
SPEAKER_01: and I think it's potentially true I
13:21
SPEAKER_00: think you're on a good point there.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the downsides,
13:24
SPEAKER_00: and there's lots of upsides,
13:25
SPEAKER_00: but one of the downsides of being
13:26
SPEAKER_00: a 25-year-old business is nearly everything you could do has previously been
13:30
SPEAKER_00: considered at least once.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: And somebody somewhere will have come to a conclusion that we tried it
13:35
SPEAKER_00: or we sniffed it and it didn't work, Therefore, it doesn't work.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: And in 25 years,
13:40
SPEAKER_00: you go from Tamagotchi to iPhone,
13:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, whatever, we're on now 28 plus max duplex.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And the whole world has changed in that gap.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of what we'd assumed doesn't work actually does or can.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And so we're retesting a lot of the stuff we'd just written off years ago
13:56
SPEAKER_00: and finding a lot more green shoots than I think we expected.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, Dragon Wilds is launching in September.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: It's a good month, isn't it?
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Ah, yes.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is a queue.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: The good news is it's a small industry and,
14:10
SPEAKER_00: you know, rising tides and all boats and all that good stuff.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: That's the right answer.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: For us, we have a really unique advantage, though.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: About 75% of all the people who've bought Dragon Wilds
14:18
SPEAKER_00: to date are RuneScape players past or present.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: So they know us, they're part of our world, they're part of our platform.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: We're really lucky that is an advantage we have,
14:24
SPEAKER_00: and we haven't got close to tapping out the 300 million person audience that
14:28
SPEAKER_00: that is.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, it's congested.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: And yes, we'll have to fight for our place.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: But the game deserves to stand on its own.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: It is genuinely very good.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: And secondarily,
14:39
SPEAKER_00: we have this unique advantage of all of these 300 million RuneScape players
14:43
SPEAKER_00: that we can really sort of lean in on.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: And that helps to de-risk a bit.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: But you'd be foolish to say that it isn't harder today than it was six months ago.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, as you say, it's not all about launch either.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: No.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: I know she had a big presence during Summer Game Fest for those things.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Is US an opportunity?
15:00
SPEAKER_01: Or are you already pretty much tapped out?
15:01
SPEAKER_00: So it depends on what the question means.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: So about 60% of our players today across all of our RuneScape products are in the US.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: So we're very US centric.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: We perform very well there.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: We always have.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, yeah.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Do we serve the U.S. audience as well as perhaps we could?
15:15
SPEAKER_00: That's a different question.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: So for the first time again in 25 years, we just went to the U.S. and held a live event.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: We did Deadman All-Stars, 4,000 people, fully sold out of theater in Chicago.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: It was incredible.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: One of the best weekends of my life.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that's true for others in the team as well.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Signed many,
15:31
SPEAKER_00: many things from hats to capes to pictures of feet to a human baby during
15:37
SPEAKER_00: that event.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Not even a joke.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: I'll show you that picture afterwards.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: In any case,
15:41
SPEAKER_00: we came to the US for the first time,
15:42
SPEAKER_00: and I think that was a bit of a lightbulb moment for us in that we just haven't been
15:46
SPEAKER_00: as close to the US players as we'd have liked.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: They've come to us for years in the form of RuneFest and fan events
15:52
SPEAKER_00: and whatever else,
15:53
SPEAKER_00: but we're just not as close to those players as I would like us to be.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: Now, what you do with that information is up to anybody's guess at the moment,
15:59
SPEAKER_00: but it's a recognition.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: I had the World of Warcraft team on earlier this year.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: And it was a good chat.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Actually, Dawson did very well for different reasons, actually.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: They've got a similar issue with it.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: It's an old game, right?
16:11
SPEAKER_01: It's been going on a long, long time.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: They've got like multiple different versions of their classic game.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: And what I found during that video is their big challenge has got loads of different voices.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: It's got people that were there in the beginning,
16:23
SPEAKER_01: they want certain things,
16:24
SPEAKER_01: people in the middle,
16:25
SPEAKER_01: people that different,
16:25
SPEAKER_01: you know, they're trying to work out to serve all of those demanding fan bases.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: Comparatively, it's quite a simple approach you've got.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: You've got old school,
16:34
SPEAKER_01: you've got RuneScape,
16:35
SPEAKER_01: and then you've got these sort of spin-offs, I guess, maybe I'll call them that.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Is that enough?
16:39
SPEAKER_01: Are you being able to tweak those dials
16:42
SPEAKER_01: and make sure you're satisfying all those different... Do you have that problem?
16:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's a problem, honestly.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: It's a good
16:49
SPEAKER_01: problem, I guess.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: It's a reality, but I
16:50
SPEAKER_00: don't know if it's a bad thing.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: I think if it was only the players that we had 20 years ago, I'd be concerned.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: If it was only the players from the last year, I'd be concerned.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually really glad we have a mix.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: I think it gives us strength and stability.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: It also gives us great freshness.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think for a 25-year-old game like RuneScape,
17:08
SPEAKER_00: particularly in its old-school form,
17:09
SPEAKER_00: which is our biggest product,
17:11
SPEAKER_00: for it to have gone through the surge that it has over the last year and be
17:16
SPEAKER_00: so zeitgeisty over that year Yeah.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: It's not true.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: It's not true.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: It stands alone as a game and performs under its own weight despite having the retro moniker.
17:47
SPEAKER_01: Why?
17:48
SPEAKER_00: The easy answer is it's great.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: The honest answer is I think it's a little bit like some of the metal bands from the late 90s.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Bear with me.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: There was a time where they were the coolest bands in the world
18:01
SPEAKER_00: and people unironically wore Metallica and Iron Maiden
18:04
SPEAKER_00: and Five Finger Death Punch shirts everywhere.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Because they were just the coolest bands in the world.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: They still are extraordinarily cool.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: They had a bit of a dip in salience and the audience for Metallica
18:16
SPEAKER_00: and Iron Maiden kind of aged up with the band for a long period of time.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: And then you start to see the Kylie Jenners of the world Well,
18:22
SPEAKER_00: kind of wearing Iron Maiden t-shirts, Metallica t-shirts.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: And there's a bunch of kids that I see that I've no idea what Metallica is,
18:28
SPEAKER_00: but they love the font and think it's a core shirt.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: I have mixed feelings about that reality.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, ma'am.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: But there is a bit of a resurgence.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: And I think we have that same sort of feeling a bit with old school.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: I was at Download Festival two weekends ago.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: How was it?
18:41
SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't quite Metallica and Iron Maiden.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Guns N' Roses were there.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Biscuit and Linkin Park.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Oh, nice.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Which is my era.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: And there was a lot of young people there and I thought you weren't around.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: You weren't there.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: You've not earned this.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: Again, I think that's what we're talking about.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: Digital has made it even more accessible for people to cross borders
18:59
SPEAKER_01: and see Chinese content and Korean content.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: But I also think it's the same with I didn't listen to the Beatles growing up.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: I did eventually.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: I had to discover them because they weren't CDs you bought in the shop.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: They weren't the new thing.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Whereas now with digital, it's very easy to go back.
19:14
SPEAKER_01: You can go wherever.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: That Meteora album has never left for me.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think,
19:19
SPEAKER_00: I think the point is that like great creations and great creative IP,
19:22
SPEAKER_00: they just transcend time genuinely.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: And I mean that honestly, I know at least for me, I'm sort of stuck in my way.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: So I still listen to Nu Metal from early 2000s.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm a Breaking Benjamin, sort of Diary of Jane guy.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: And that fits the runescape.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Group very, very well indeed.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think the fact that we have captured,
19:40
SPEAKER_00: I think,
19:40
SPEAKER_00: with our game a portion of time that even those who weren't there in their sort
19:44
SPEAKER_00: of formative teenage years still sort of long for.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: There's a collective nostalgia for the simpler days before all the madness
19:51
SPEAKER_00: of social media and stuff.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: And even that,
19:53
SPEAKER_00: I think,
19:53
SPEAKER_00: has breached into the younger generations who weren't even alive for it
19:56
SPEAKER_00: or necessarily mature for it.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: I think we offer a bit of that.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to change the subject because we could talk about new metal.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: We should.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: I read a quote from your SVP of product.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, James.
20:06
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Jagex is leading from the heart again.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: And I really like this.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: Something I've said before because I'm often asked,
20:14
SPEAKER_01: because I do a lot on data, I'm often asked, you know, how do you use it?
20:18
SPEAKER_01: And I said, data should be used to back up your decisions.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't be used to make your decisions.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: And I believe,
20:23
SPEAKER_01: I've often,
20:24
SPEAKER_01: I think it's true of any industry really,
20:25
SPEAKER_01: but it's definitely true of an artistic industry.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: You know what the right choice is.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: You live, you know your team.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: You know what they're good at.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: You know what they're not good at.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: You know what they could be good at.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: You know your product.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: You know your fans.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: And so therefore you go, I think this is the right way.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: And the truth is that is probably the right way.
20:42
SPEAKER_01: Then you look at the data.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Is it, you know,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: am I way off or,
20:45
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:45
SPEAKER_01: but then you can use it to back up your decisions,
20:47
SPEAKER_01: make your case to the board or whatever it is you need to do.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: I really like that.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: I think leading from the And that may not sound like a very corporate answer to give
20:56
SPEAKER_01: to an investor or to a business leader, but I think that's actually the way to go.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: It's not really a question, but I just really like that perspective.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: He's absolutely right.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't have put it better myself.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't feel safe.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it feels safe to have numbers making the decisions for you.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: I think as soon as you get lost in that, you're not really making decisions anyway.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: You're just letting consequences roll out of data points, which is unfortunate.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: I think for us, leading with heart is the only thing that we can really do well.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: I think we're never gonna out-data the big guns.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: We're never gonna out-resource the big guns,
21:26
SPEAKER_00: even though we're putting our money where our mouth is as best we can and more
21:28
SPEAKER_00: than ever before.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Actually,
21:30
SPEAKER_00: people who've grown up playing this game and have played it for 20 years
21:33
SPEAKER_00: and have been working here for 10 years doing the thing that they feel is right,
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Is nearly always the right thing to do.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: And the great news is we've got checks and balances in the way
21:41
SPEAKER_00: that we release updates to old school anyway.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: We've got the polling system.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Nothing goes into the game without a 70% supermajority of votes in game.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: And so we have safeguards already there.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: But the great news is the players who play our game and the people
21:54
SPEAKER_00: who make our games are nearly always the same people.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: So it's not that hard to get a read on what we should do.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: Don't always get it right.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: We nearly always make some kind of mistake when we do something.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: But directionally, it's normally from the heart, not from the head.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's the price you pay.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: I had this story years ago about Fable.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: They were trying to put a list of the moves or the spells they were going to put in the game.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: And one of the spells was a character would disappear,
22:16
SPEAKER_01: appear behind another character and break their neck.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: And then there was another spell which turned them into a chicken.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Anyone that's played Fable for five minutes knows exactly which one
22:24
SPEAKER_01: of those
22:24
SPEAKER_00: spells is a Fable spell.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm still mad about the dog, by the way.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: It's what we did to be the DLC.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: But I was pleased to find out that the instinct of that studio was to go with a chicken.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: And the reason why I think that's a great example of it is I'm pretty sure
22:36
SPEAKER_01: if you tend to the Witcher community or another RPG,
22:39
SPEAKER_01: actually it would be the other option.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: And the data wouldn't necessarily They tell you that if you're looking at a board
22:44
SPEAKER_01: of industry data, but you know your game anyway.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying the same thing.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: Always go with the chicken.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: So slight aside, very slight tangent, and then we'll go back on script, I promise.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's all right.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Go off script.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: It's a podcast.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: So about a year ago, On the RuneScape subreddit, so not old school, but RuneScape.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: We did a bunch of graphical work.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: The early game looks beautiful.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: It looks way better than ever before.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: That's not something we do because of the data.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: It's something we did because it felt right.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't necessarily move the needle, but it's better.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: When we did that...
23:13
SPEAKER_00: There was a fence in a part of our game that impaled the edge of a barrel and
23:18
SPEAKER_00: so it was just a clipping of two assets.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: No big issue.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: One guy went out of his way to make it his life's journey to sort
23:24
SPEAKER_00: of get this graphical interference issue fixed.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: I made a post every day on Reddit saying day 112 of waiting for this barrel to be fixed.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: And so I sat with one of the guys,
23:34
SPEAKER_00: one of the lead designers on RuneScape in this office,
23:37
SPEAKER_00: and I said, look, I've seen this Reddit post for the last 129 days.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Are we going to do something?
23:41
SPEAKER_00: And then literally, He said, what if we moved it further into the fence?
23:46
SPEAKER_00: I said, that's such a good idea.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: We then spent about half a year moving it an inch further into the fence every day.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: And this guy responded every day with a day 400 of waiting
23:57
SPEAKER_00: for this stupid barrel thing to be over.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Made the barrel bigger.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Now it is out of the fence with a hole where the fence was leaking water forevermore.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: I think that playfulness is really who we are at our best.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And if you lose it, you lose the chicken.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: It feels very British that,
24:11
SPEAKER_01: like there's someone who flagged the bug and our response is to troll it, right?
24:16
SPEAKER_01: It's to lean into it.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, make fun of it in a gentle way.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: In a very,
24:20
SPEAKER_00: as you say, sort
24:20
SPEAKER_00: of Monty Python style.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to lose that.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: It's the magic of it.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: It makes this place turn over.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: It makes players happy.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: It's who we are at our best.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Personally.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: How important is all about console then?
24:31
SPEAKER_01: You're coming to console.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: Exciting.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: It is.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: All three.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: It is.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: We saw some of it out there.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: How important is the console to your vision for where things are heading?
24:42
SPEAKER_00: It's important.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Our future doesn't depend on it.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: No.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: It's another validation point.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: It's a testing what we've always assumed to be not right for us.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And like I said before,
24:52
SPEAKER_00: the last 25 years,
24:53
SPEAKER_00: somebody somewhere looked at console,
24:54
SPEAKER_00: said it wasn't going to be possible for one of our core games,
24:56
SPEAKER_00: probably not even It's even worth it.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: The upside isn't that much.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Let's not bother.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And that is just hung around in the walls of the place being sort of checked every few years.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: This is our first legitimate, we're actually going to do this thing moment.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: New RuneScape product, tons of resource invested, tons of time invested, tons of heart.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: We're going to bring it to new platforms where historically we've never been
25:16
SPEAKER_00: and therefore it will be hard to get off the ground.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: We've done some of the numbers on this.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: We think there's about six million of our historical players on each of
25:23
SPEAKER_00: the two main platforms, i.e.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Xbox and PlayStation, and then about twice that on Switch.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
25:28
SPEAKER_00: That are already on the console.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And so when we've been speaking with the platforms,
25:31
SPEAKER_00: I've been saying, look, you don't need to create an audience for us.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: They have one.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: They're just there.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: Let's bring a game to them that they're going to recognize and love the IP of.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: I think what it does for us is it validates collectively for everybody
25:42
SPEAKER_00: in this building and beyond that the horizons we thought were there aren't
25:45
SPEAKER_00: the horizons.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: They're just a new place for us to play and actually the true edge of
25:51
SPEAKER_00: the horizon is much further away.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: And that does a lot,
25:54
SPEAKER_00: I think,
25:54
SPEAKER_00: internally for the way that we think about ourselves and the company and the game
25:58
SPEAKER_00: and our players.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think it helps to healthily unlock Perceptions of Ambition.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: Twice that on Switch.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: What is it?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: It's just a lot of players on Switch.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Honestly is the answer.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: There's no secret math as well as I can tell.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: I thought maybe it's a vibe to RuneScape that naturally, you know.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: I think there's something in that.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: I've got no numbers to say it, but you're probably right.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: We'll see what the numbers look like after we actually see player data.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: All these price rises on consoles though, does it give you a bit of a pause?
26:31
SPEAKER_00: It does a bit.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a control the controllables thing, isn't it?
26:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we could absolutely lament that it's happening.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
26:39
SPEAKER_00: I speak with my board and my team and say, look,
26:41
SPEAKER_00: some of our expectations might need to shift a bit because GTA is launching
26:44
SPEAKER_00: in November.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else is launching in September.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Console prices are going through the roof.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: Longer selling physical discs.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of things changing around us that we can't control.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Our job is to come to the places where players are,
26:54
SPEAKER_00: do our very best interpretation of giving them what they want,
26:57
SPEAKER_00: and carry on one foot after another.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: The rest of it that is outside of our control isn't really worth worrying too much about.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: It's probably over simplistic, but it's honest.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: Are your games particularly resource intensive?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: Do you think you're relatively sheltered from it?
27:12
SPEAKER_00: You could run old school on a potato.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: It's brilliant.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the best things about it.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't necessarily mean that you can buy a super cheap console to run it.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: The consoles are the consoles, aren't they?
27:22
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: Don't solve the console problem.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: I think it's been remarkable.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: You've come in and you've, I mean,
27:27
SPEAKER_01: you suggested some of these changes were happening before you stepped through
27:30
SPEAKER_01: the door,
27:30
SPEAKER_01: but it's been quite this journey already and you've still got to see the results
27:37
SPEAKER_01: for it.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: This is a very general question.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: If you listen to podcasts, I know you do, you might.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: I ask this a lot.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: I do.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: What is the five year vision?
27:44
SPEAKER_01: What was your dream for RuneScape?
27:46
SPEAKER_00: The dream is that we're not the number two biggest MMO brand in the world.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: We're the number one.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: There's a big old gap between us and number one,
27:53
SPEAKER_00: but if we get it right, we know we can make headway.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: We know we can do great things.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: It's lofty and it's ambitious,
27:58
SPEAKER_00: but If you're going to set lofty and ambitious goals, why not swing for the top?
28:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's the number one goal.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: I think slightly more pragmatically in terms of what that looks like day to day,
28:07
SPEAKER_00: I would love in five years time to have
28:09
SPEAKER_00: at least three very large growing RuneScape games for
28:15
SPEAKER_00: a combined multi-million person audience that feels happier with where
28:18
SPEAKER_00: the games are today than they do right now.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: We'll have done our job well.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: I guess with all the live service There's a lot of conversation around how hard
28:26
SPEAKER_01: that is with people's time and that limit really how many that you might be able
28:31
SPEAKER_01: to do.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: Because I guess there's a chance that these games might compete with each other, right?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: A bit.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: A bit.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: But I don't worry too much if the strawberry ice cream competes with the chocolate.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: We just want to sell ice cream.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: And that I think is a good thing.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: And actually, if we can get more cross-pollination between our games, I'll be grateful for it.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: I think it's no bad thing.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: I can tell you right now,
28:49
SPEAKER_00: I think the average session length in Old School RuneScape per day is just
28:51
SPEAKER_00: under five hours.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: These are people who on average are 32 years old.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: They have jobs and lives and families and kids and all that good stuff.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: You're lucky if I get five hours a week.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is it.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Ask me what I'm doing behind the scenes while I'm doing the job is I'm logged into old school.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Right now I'm phishing and not literally right now, but shortly I will be.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And that I think is true for many people.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: There's millions of Deloitte consultants out there somewhere
29:15
SPEAKER_00: that have got Excel open on one screen and old school on the other.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think you design for that reality and that's what we do.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: Pitch that scene in Avengers when someone's playing,
29:23
SPEAKER_01: someone's playing Gallagher and you want that to be old school, I guess.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Phoebe Bridges recently released an unbelievable new song and I got
29:30
SPEAKER_00: an unsuspecting email a few weeks ago saying,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: can we use old school footage in the music video?
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, that sounds great.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: Not knowing what's going to come of it.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Anyway,
29:39
SPEAKER_00: saw the music video go live and now it's like a real cross-cultural moment where in
29:43
SPEAKER_00: the middle of this like super poppy,
29:46
SPEAKER_00: very sort of zeitgeisty music video, there's a guy in a gas station playing.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Old School RuneScape in the background.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: And it's so well encapsulates what old school is for so many people.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: It really hit home for me in that moment.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: Like this is so much bigger than our office and our team.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: It's actually kind of a cultural thing that exists in the background
30:03
SPEAKER_00: of people's lives for years on end.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like a family pet.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: John, I'm Jagex, the local studio to me, so I've always been a big fan.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited that you're going on this journey.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad we finally got you here.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I've been here before, but a long time ago.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: Different world.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: I think you'd launched a publishing division,
30:21
SPEAKER_01: you personally,
30:22
SPEAKER_01: you weren't here,
30:22
SPEAKER_01: but the publishing division was being launched,
30:24
SPEAKER_00: which I don't think is here anymore.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: Correct.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: So it was that long ago, but yeah, it's nice to be back.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: We'll get back to you about the job application
30:31
SPEAKER_01: as well.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: John, thank you.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: Cheers, Chris.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: Thank you to John there for joining us.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: That's it for today's episode of The Game Business Show.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: We will,
30:39
SPEAKER_01: of course,
30:39
SPEAKER_01: be back with more news,
30:40
SPEAKER_01: more interviews, more insight and more analysis in the days and weeks to come.
30:44
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30:45
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30:47
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30:52
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30:55
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30:59
SPEAKER_01: But that's it for me today.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, thank you for tuning in.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.