The MMORPG RuneScape has been online for almost 24 years now. An impressive time that would not have happened without a stable fan base. But it is precisely these loyal followers that Jagex Games Studio has offended in a recent survey.
Surveys are actually a useful thing, after all it's rarely a bad thing when developers listen to their own community. However, the RuneScape studio Jagex messed it up a bit. Because the survey is about the monetization of the MMORPG.
Some points in it caused a real shitstorm. For example, there was talk of in-game advertising for paying customers, paying users should also have exclusive access to account protection mechanisms and a subscription with limited access to the game was also mentioned in the survey.
The feedback was so intense that the CEO of Jagex Games Studio, Mod Pips, felt compelled to make a statement. You don't want to obstruct the elements, the community should just vote on the theoretical idea.
But the trust has been severely broken, as a statement from the YouTuber penguinz0 shows. With over 16 million subscriptions, he is one of the largest creators on the platform and, according to his own statement, he has been a part of RuneScape since 2005. During this time, he has accumulated over 4,000 hours of playing time - just on his main account!
According to him, the apology doesn't change anything, rather it shows the studio's greed and could potentially even kill the game completely. The developers are more than willing to maximize profits at the expense of the gaming experience. For him, the survey is just the beginning of the incessant decline that RuneScape will experience from now on.
penguinz0's statement is very emotional and his community shares his fears. They are afraid of excessive microtransactions and see the end of the game as sealed if the studio sticks to its plans.
