Runescape is jacking up their subscription prices next month, going from like 12 bucks to 14 bucks a month. The increases range from 20% to 56% in price depending on currency. Players are PISSED about it especially since the company got bought out by some investment firm earlier this year, and they see it as a shameless cash grab.
Here’s a mega thread about the price increase on Reddit. Overwhelmingly negative feedback on the price increase
https://www.reddit.com/r/2007scape/s/samPRjFSCn
So I decided to make a post on Reddit basically asking in a neutral way if it would deter people from playing… And I was met with the most hostile, toxic keyboard warriors basically telling me “maybe stop working at McDonalds and you can afford it” and defending the company for the price increase. After an hour, my post was removed, and I was banned for a year without any explanation.
I’m honestly in shock that I would get banned just for asking a question, like they are that angry about people talking about the price increase?
You should try the other subreddit, RS3 players are more than happy to pull out the pitchforks.
“Invest Firms” are doing this all over. My company as well as several other prominent southwest construction companies just got bought out, too.
This is the end game of capitalism. Firms buying other firms to squeeze every dime out of them. Its about to get fucken bumpy.
I was literally looking at playing again with the Sailing announcement
Now it’s… No. I remember $5 back in the day and that was awesome.
Not a big surprise on the Huffman Shitshow. A lot of subs over there are insanely toxic. But yeah, a ban for that? That’s crazy.
I didn’t even know RuneScape had a subscription! I think I briefly played it about 15 years ago. Good game, I just don’t have the time to play it, unfortunately. I assume you play? What’s the community like over there?
I just looked up their pricing and it makes sense for them to have an optional subscription. $14 a month is in line with other similar games (e.g. wow). Would be nice if they had a couple of tiers of subscription. Maybe a $7 and a $14. But that might complicate things. How much can you do on the free mode?
20 years ago it was $5 and maybe like 10% of skills were locked behind it. I noticed very little impact from it. But I’m pretty sure end game stuff was locked. IIRC, dragon armor was locked and may have been the best armor.
I’d be surprised if that general model changed significantly.
Runescape is nice and all but it’s not WoW IMO.
Shout out to the open source Runescape remakes
https://rsc.vet/ - 2003 era remake
https://2009scape.org - 2009 era remake
https://darkan.org/ - 2012 era remake
There are other open source remakes (2004, 2006) but they’re not as popular. I’ve actually contributed upstream to all 3 of the above, it’s a very nice community!
Thank you for this, I’m going to set up my own Open RSC server tonight.
Thanks!
I played it a looong time ago, mined a lot lol.
Tried it later and it was more 3D-ish and I didn’t like that very much.
Any idea which one I should try out?
Cheers!
https://vidyascape.org/ also anon client
Vidyascape is the best real 07 remake, but is it open source?
$12 to $14
…
50% increase
Pick one
Or learn to read.
Or change the title to up to 50%
Wait hold on, how does an across the board increase from $12 USD to $14 USD result in 50% increase in price, “depending on currency”?
Isn’t currency conversion just a scalar multiplier that applies to both the $12 starting cost and the $14 new cost?
No, not sure if other industries do this, but buying a game in a weak currency usually turns out cheaper (by alot) because Devs will usually offer the game for a lower price in the weaker economy
So OP wrote a misleading description when saying the increase was from $12 to $14?
I don’t play RuneScape and I’m just going off of their description, which is inconsistent and the derogatory “just read lol” has so far shown to be wrong.
Because they quoted the dollar price, and how it affects other countries. The prices are featured in the link, SEK is particularly egregious.
I feel like I’m missing something completely - maybe I do need to learn how to read. The only thing I’m seeing on the jagex page is new prices for a handful of currencies, SEK is not one of them.
There’s no mention of past prices at all?
Read the Reddit posts.
Well OP does say the price increase ranges from 20% to 50%
In other currencies the price change is over 50%, for example Euro price going from 8 to 12.50
Ah, that would’ve been much better for OP to include as an example…
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, and I preface this by saying I do not fully understand the ins and outs of game development, though I am a software engineer (just not a game dev).
OSRS has made some absolutely amazing improvements in the last couple years. Almost every single update has hit perfectly with nothing but minor errors or complaints. New expansions and regions, new quests, new raid, weapon and damage rebalances, new bosses, new community events and special game modes, new updates to their clients both mobile and desktop, and most importantly a significantly better bot-busting system over the last few months.
This shit isn’t cheap. That’s a LOT of parallel systems and work, and OSRS continues to have 0 micro transactions outside of membership. True, RS3 and its cesspool of mtx helps fund OSRS, but I don’t know how far that goes.
I’m OK with OSRS costing $2 more per month if it means that this current cadence of content of QOL updates marches on. Jagex has been absolutely nailing it and I’m very happy with them, and that’s worth money to me.
Keep in mind Jagex reported record profits last year, so this isn’t about covering increasing costs.
I used to be a game dev. Busy so can’t reply atm but Jagex and OSRS make a LOT of money compared to everyone else already. Their subscription stats are insane
Might have been banned for talking about the new pricing outside the mega thread tbh
For 1y though? Mod defo has microscopic pp
That’s true for any mod.
Honestly for an MMO it’s still a good price. MMOs in particular people sink a tonne of hours into, so it’s pennies per hour which (like gaming in general) is a pretty good rate for entertainment. That doesn’t mean huge mark ups like these are anything but infuriating.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Runescape should have tiered membership for multiple characters. For example, one character for $10, three for $20, ten for $50, etc. This would make it easier on player’s wallets, and frankly it would encourage people to play the other game modes.
Having said that, I think the larger problem is that the people that develop the game get peanuts for pay. Most of them are fans of the game and just want to work on it, but doing so shouldn’t trap them to a low income. It’s not a good sign when developers can leave the company and earn a higher salary streaming Runescape content.
What can you expect when the company is owned by an investment group.
Small note. This is only for new members. From their email to existing members:
“If you’re already a paying Member via a monthly or 6 monthly subscription, then nothing will change, as long as your subscription remains active, we will continue to honour the same price you’re paying now as part of our “Grandfather Rate” which is explained in more detail in the FAQ below.”
This is only for new members.
Incorrect. You should reread what you included.
as long as your subscription remains active, we will continue to honour the same price you’re paying now as part of our “Grandfather Rate”
So you’re locked in basically to that rate until you cancel. It’s not for new members specifically. But there’s not always going to be content that you enjoy playing. People who stay subscribed to an MMO forever are people who have tons of money to just throw away. I play World of Warcraft, and I have never just subscribed for a year at a time. Sometimes I get busy and I don’t have time to play, or there’s nothing I enjoy in the current patch.
Doesn’t apply to the yearly rate.
Well I mean it’s RuneScape so lol
Runescape almost als expensive as WoW was 20 year ago
Body A/B feature is quite costly, ya know
It’s just RuneScape. Don’t like it? Quit. Vote with your wallet.
Dude, I feel like if you’re still playing RuneScape in the year of our lord 2024, it’s more than just RuneScape for you at this point.
Then if they’re gonna whine about it, but pay anyway, they’re basically saying the company can do whatever they like and they (the players) will just suck it up. So what’s the use of whining then?
A lot of the gaming subs on Reddit suck. Especially /gaming, but not all of them. They’re full of industry shills and “git gud kid” types, and don’t you dare criticize anything the hive mind is softballing like a gaming magazine review.
