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The Truth Behind Runescape's Sale: Jagex Investors Cash out Good-Will - Carlyle group
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2023
- Following last weeks video on runescape, we discuss runescape being sold by the Carlyle group following a massive cash out via battle passes, plushies, boardgames and much much more.
jagex is now on the market for 1 billion pounds. this could spell disaster for the future of runescape and jagex. lets look at why!
#scam #runescape #Jagex #Sold #carlyle
Jagex Investors Cash out good-will - Carlyle group sold Runescape
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Tencent will gobble this up, announce end of life for PC by 2025, and will continue as a mobile app with all of the original cash transactions back in the game.
i hate to say it, but i think you're 100% on the mark here
Start the countdown. >.
@@CallumUpton I forgot the bit about making a public announcement about the acquisition, letting everyone know Jagex will continue to stay the course, layoff 200+ people, and automate their customer service entirely (after liquidating the department)
@@dylanherron3963 the squeal of fortune shall return to OSRS with the hd update
And i started to enjoy the game,never played properly before. I hate all of this
Man, Runscape was supposed to be the one who resisted the modern cash hungry mmo space. But over years, they gave in and decided to turn into the one thing they swore to fight against
I think you're referring to just Old School Runescape specifically. It makes no sense to speak that way about RS3, or the company Jagex
@sttthr yes, Old School. Side note, I found an apk to get Vanilla runescape and the nostalgia hit me hard lol
When did they ever swear to fight against greedy monetization? I don’t recall that anywhere.
You didn't watch the previous video where he showed that Jagex were actually ahead of nearly all other MMO's at adding almost every type of MTX to the game, did you?
Welcome to the world of business. Money talks bullshit walks.
"the players can win"
Can they? What I see is a common anchoring technique: they released something egregious, just to walk it back a bit so it doesn't look as bad in comparison.
See? They LiStEnEd To OuR cOnCeRnS.
Some players praising Jagex for "listening to feedback" was the most BDSM thing I've ever seen.
And I have an empty browser history.
@@sttthr Eh, BDSM is too much fun for this. I think you meant beaten spouse syndrome… 🤐
@@ArDeeMee Some people seem to find fun in companies yanking their chains time and time again.
@@sttthr Man BDSM has safe words, aftercare, *things to make sure it's not abusive.* 😏
Couple of things to note;
OSRS does have its own section on their store and have periodically released osrs themed items. (For example, exclusive pins, 12" Vinyl music, tshirts etc)
The boardgame has been in the works since last year, and was released on kickstarter at that point.
Not to diminish the idea that they are ramping up sales, but I thought I would just mention that some dates were off.
i don't see anything wrong with selling merch
@@jurgnobs1308 That wasnt my point. I was pointing out that Jagex sold osrs items before the potential sale of the company. Trust me, I am one of the sad people that bought a lot of osrs merch haha.
I work in business sales for a sell sided business broker. Honestly, if they are hoping for a large increase in profits over a quarter, it won't matter a great deal to a sale value. It would need to be sustained growth that they can prove will continue. During the due diligence process, the issues about membership etc would be easily discovered.
Of course, the recurring revenue element would be a massive value driver, but the fact that long term growth has been sacrificed, to an extent, for short term growth, that's something that any competent acquirer would pick up on.
I hope whoever bought Jagex realizes how passionate the OSRS community is about our game. You ruin our game, we'll ruin your finances.
Just how much revenue is the OSRS community even responsible for? I doubt you'd be able to impact their finances enough to achieve much at all. Pretty sure RS3 is where the money mostly is.
@@ChickenPizza earnings report shows that OSRS has made more money than RS3 for the last 5 years. Around 60% of Jagex's revenue comes from OSRS. Thus, OSRS has a bigger impact on their finaces than RS3.
@@Jomonji If that's true, then I stand corrected. I'm not invested enough to double check that so I'll just take your word for it.
it is true, rs3 nerds just always want to lie about it to feel more relevant@@ChickenPizza
They already ruined it with pride event
So to summarise : Jagex pump and dumped Jagex company value and sold it, the investors that bought it will make mtx even worse to cover the shortfall from the dump phase, so its going to be even worse then the pump in the long run.
"Jagex sold Jagex" way back in 2012. Since then it has been the property of different international holding companies. Each one holding for a few years and cashing out. The current one is called The Carlyle Group. AFAIK, it hasn't yet been announced who they're selling to.
tencent@@sttthr
The point about players having been given a massive 50% discount on a one year membership isn’t really on the mark. Buying a year was always a large discount over paying month to month. It just went from $79.99 (~$6.66 per month) to $71.99 (~6.00 per month) for a short period.
Good to see the green screen being utilized so effectively 😂😂😂
Yeah!
FYI They have had a merch shop for years including old school. Key chains, coffee cups, & t-shirts.
these were all fan made and licensed by jagex from what i remember. but yes you're correct!
I don't think Jagex really had any goodwill left to cash out. Grinding Gear Games did with PoE, when purchased by Tencent. Maybe some day that'll bite them, but it hasn't yet.
Jagex on the other hand has just been squatting down and taking a dump on their audience' carpet repeatedly. And now they want you to get them a new carpet.
hasn't yet? they have some of the most expensive cosmetic armors i have ever seen in a game. they have no insentive to make cool armor in-game drops. they are all on the store for 20+ for one fuck piece not even the set. $250+ microtransactions is just ludicrous. Saying Tencent has not affected GGG's monetization of POE is just factually wrong.
@@LemonSoulz not to mention lots of new stuff that act like currency to make us buy stash tabs
@@LemonSoulz I...didn't say that? I 'did' say it doesn't seem to have come back to bite them yet, and tbh I'm not sure it has, GGG are doing pretty solid business. I didn't even weigh in on anything specific, or whether I agreed with it or not. I just said it hasn't blown up in their faces yet...and it hasn't.
@@LemonSoulz Good thing he did not say that is has "not affected GGG's monetization of POE", just that "Maybe some day that'll bite them, but it hasn't yet". So there's nothing "factually incorrect" about it.
Learn to read with comprehension and stop putting things in other people's mouths to make your own arguments. Why are people like this?
@@LemonSoulz PoE had crazy expensive MTX for years prior to Tencent.
That said, they have greatly expanded the available cosmetics you can earn in game over the last year or so. Previously you could get 3 cosmetics for doing challenges, like a weapon effect, pet, or portal. Now full armor suits are common + variations.
Your spot on with the idea that we will never come back if micro transactions are added to OSRS. I know a ton of people who took years to come back to OSRS because they were worried the same thing would happen. After years of proof they were not adding them they finally decided to build a new account on the OSRS servers.
If Jagex goes back on their word of never adding micro transactions to OSRS I expect an instant drop off of 50% of the player base or more. With the rest of the players slowly dying off over 5 years.
It this come in game , I’m uninstalling the game idc
If they even reference it I will sell my account immediately and rwt the gold. I didn't come back until 2016 for this very reason you state
This is what we mean by "corporations are not your friends". They only care about shareholders and it's unreasonable to think they are "thinking of the players" when letting us have some crumbs. Now remember that next time you think about trusting in Bethesda, Microsoft, Bugisoft, Sony, Nintendo, etc. just because they delivered a good game that one time.
This. If players want to make their opinions heard, they have to remember this. That were not fighting the devs or jagex but their decisions and over-reliance on shareholders. If they arent going to listen to what the playerbase wants, then they shouldnt play the game. Only way those shareholders are going to loosen their death grip on these games is if you hit em where it hurts, the numbers.
@@sterlingburnsides9712 The problem is that, most of the time, catering to shareholders works. Blizzard made a lot of money moving to mobile. Bethesda is making a lot of money with the predatory shop of Fallout 76. We can't free market our way out of a problem caused by abuse of a free market.
This is the extreme case where shareholders are doing something stupid and/or shady (there's a lawsuit on the horizon for insider trading) but, bottom line, corporatisation will hurt art (and the consumer) in the pursuit of money sooner or later. Because assuming that the only way to win in a free market is by benefitting the consumer is so stupid as to be inacceptable in the face of the existence of marketing departments.
@@ekki1993 We literally can free market our way out of it because, gaming at least, is still a relatively free market. If companies want to incinerate themselves they can go ahead, I don't give a single F if Bethesda and Blizzard are spamming "predatory shops" into all their games, I havent given either money in over a decade and they're nowhere near a monopoly (nobody is).
Not to mention the whole "being beholden to shareholders at every turn" is literally not "free market", in an actual free market you could do whatever tf you wanted with your company whether it pissed them off or not, you'd risk your company but you'd be able to do it without being sued.
Currently the most successful gaming company on the planet is arguably Valve, their employee count is lower than most Triple A game dev studios while they rake in more money than pretty much everyone except the top publishers which have an employee count dozens of times higher than them.
Valve is a private company, it does whatever tf it wants and its being helmed by financially savvy people who know the way to play the financial game is long term unlike what the clueless investors, which are legally required to be placated, want.
@@DebasedAnon A small correction: being free market doesn't allow anyone to do as they please with their company regardless of the wishes of the shareholders. The shareholders are the owners of a company and the people running it are (I think) technically just employees, unless they are also shareholders. Shareholders have a right to decide how a company is run for the same reason anyone gets to decide what is done with something they own. It's the trade-off between staying a private company or becoming a publicly traded company: you can get more capital and do bigger projects if you go public, but you can retain more control if you stay private.
I agree with your overall point that gamers shouldn't be so passive and should stop giving their business to companies that do such shady practices, though.
@@SmashTheElder True, I should have specified in cases where shareholders are under 50% ownership of the company in which case, in a free market, you could do whatever you wanted since you're the majority owner (therefore it is your property) but as it currently stands anything that loses the company money and thus tanks the stock can be argued to be against the law if done in an intentional/negiligent way.
Imo if you own the majority and you want to burn down the company its on the shareholders for investing in a company owned by a clown. If they own a majority however it does effectively become their property instead of just an investment.
Totally agree that the general gaming audience should stop being mindless consumers and just vote with their wallet, its baffling to me how they don't when this is one of the easiest industries to do it in...
If it was something more essential in day to day life you'd obviously get a very low % of people to boycott but its video games.
its mind boggling.
First Insight Venture Partners, now Carlyle. Jagex has always been linked to these greedy, unthoughtful dregs of society who have zero passion and little knowledge of gaming, but only of business. It's a miracle the actual devs have been able to keep the ship sailing as long as they have. We should be grateful for them, at least.
thats what I have been commenting even if the new owners ruin the shit like in the past, the original devs that are gamers will keep it alive even if its under a free client or modded client they will help us and make sure we cna play the beloved game. The devs keeping osrs alive have always listened to its core community and they didn't do it to get money if anything it was against all of the shareholders dreams, these predatory tactics coming to os3 arent new and tbf Jagex is so old I wouldn't be surprised if many many many times they were introduced to these new tactics and completely ignored it.
@@Joee_Kool problem is most of the original devs left
Interesting points of view; it's also important to show that bots have significantly increased in the recent months showing a sign that Carlyle group is willing to sarcfic the economy of the game and not focus on the botting issues as it will show an inflated player count.
100% this was on my list of talking points but i missed it when recording. its sad but completely true
This is so wrong and you kids are so stupid.
The monetary owner of runescape is not thinking about how bots effect the economy of the game lmao
One look into it and you'll clearly see that jagex is bought and sold constantly.
If you play rs3 then I thank you because you are funding the existence of osrs
Lmao
People like you are just wired to spew out any information that you can come up with surrounding anything that happens. Just so you can make a stupid video.
Honestly just stop you have no idea what you are talking about.
and then they promise us they have a solution for the bot problem. yeah, sell the company i guess solves a lot xD
@@BloodDripssstop being a negative Nancy you liberal cuck and be glad you got ... sailing.
EoC was the last straw, only bots and bot equivalent idiots continued playing
Even if a company has always seemed fine and good, if they start pulling some fake self inflation of numbers then you know it might be time to pull out. If the deal doesn't go through then that company is now stuck with a game they don't quite care about anymore, if the deal does go through then the company coming in will be immediately disappointed when they realise that profits were exaggerated and may take that out on the players.
Also any company falling for this obvious scheme must be incompetent to begin with.
Honestly, if a company is stupid enough to not take the two hours of research needed to spot a very public pump scheme like this before dropping a billion dollars on a company, they deserve to lose every penny they spent. I agree they would take it out on the players by destroying the game, but the financial failure that would follow is exactly what they earned by being incredibly stupid in the first place.
yea, its a very naive and ignorant take to think a financial group that has the money to purchase a BILLION dollar company wouldnt see a "public pump scheme" if thats even what it is. @@Xanthelei
If it’s actually worth 500m they won’t get 1b for it. People with that kind of money do due diligence.
@@TheUndulyNoted it was worth 500m at the time Carlyle group purchased it. It has almost certainly gone up in value. They’ll make a profit that’s for sure
"Walking back" is always BS, but especially when they already released it after being told it wasn't wanted before THEN doing a "walk back" on it.
As someone in their early 40s I just find it so bizarre to see a venture capital organization that made billions on real world war profiteering 20 years ago is now trying to squeeze every dime out of an old MMO.
lol indeed. It reminds me of scenes from Succession where they talk about their portfolio and what they should go towards. I bet these companies are always scheming.
LOL great intro graphic!
yeah it’s great!
haha, im glad you liked it! new studio means i can mess about with the videos more than i could before :D
that’s great! can’t wait to see what else you come up with :D
And now they pushed out 7 day membership prime codes and the botters rejoice, pumping up "player" and membership numbers even more
this is actually something i forgot to mention in this! along with letting existing botters sun rampant :/
any other time this could've been attributed to their usual Twitch Prime promotion. But that promotion is already active(runecoins and keys). I could be wrong, but I don't think they've overlapped Prime promotions before.
weird to say they never sell merch, especially for old school, when there's a whole super deddicated community that collects official pins/keychains that are sold through their official merch store. I see a lot of people on twitter rocking OSRS official merch too.
This whole video is full of this kind of flat out, easily debunked, misinformation.
@@jimothyslim7332 get started then we're all waiting
MTX in RS3 drove me away, but the final straw was when I got polyps for it while logging in, and throughout gameplay. That is such a quick way to ruin an experience. There is no way I’m waiting for that to happen in OSRS. The very first sign of MTX (other than bonds) in OSRS, and I’m out. I’ve been preemptively trying to figure out all of Albion’s mechanics.
Albion is completely p2w btw u can literally spend irl money to buy the best gear and even just straight up buy exp, althought im not saying its a bad game its actually a game i like a lot and play way more than rs these days.
Unfortunately albion online requires tons of alts to play even if you pay for premium on one account.
The Carlyle group are dreamers to think they'll be able to get a $1 billion valuation in a 20 year old game where most of the community are bots
Whats much difference between a bot and a modern person
@@effigy42 I'd guess that most membership bots get membership by bonds (just guessing though, I have no clue). So they don't really support Jagex financially, and they're the fuel for RWT which also hurts Jagex because it's less people buying bonds for GP. But more importantly, they have a big impact on the osrs economy. There would likely be a lot more early-mid game money-makers if botting was eliminated. If I was a betting man, I'd guess that's the reason why Jagex allows bots. Forces players to progress a lot before they can start making decent GP. And what does it take to progress? More months of membership and a lot of GP, which a lot of people are willing to pay for.
So overall botting is probably profitable or neutral for Jagex, I think it harms players. Although there's benefits for players too. Idk maybe botting is necessary.
Hey man thanks for the shout out on the correction :D!
(I pointed out the runemetrics thingy)
Yay -the video was bookended- there is thematic consistency in editing! Jokes aside, love the vid Callum. I enjoy seeing you and KiraTV climb through the horrible, miry, pit that is UA-cam. To your many future successes!
Had to strike through because I almost had a fatwa put on me for spoiling the couch on the last video!
🥂
hay so bungie just droped the "wonderful" idea of bring back old seasons battle pass items but chargin up to $80 to get all the items if you missed them by not playing in said season even though you may own said season pass but due to say illness couldnt play it, kinda double dipping and excesivly predetory woudltn you say ?
Hey Callum, in the intro, how did you get that high-res model, compared to the rest of the models around you? Was it some MTX or a modded one? It looks fantastic!
I'm a paying member of old school because there is no mtx, I see one single extra purchase in old school I'm walking away and never looking back
Same
What is your issue with it tho? You don't have to use it and nobody forces it upon you. XP inflation is already taking place in o7 too by adding new content older content is devalued so the xp you made back in the day is already worth less nowadays in the faster day and age. If someone really wants to spend 100$ really bad to get let's say 500k xp in whatever skill be my guest and go ahead, i could just get the same ammount with 1-5 hours of gameplay depending on the skill, is that really worth 100$? It is also in no way unhealthy for the game since leaderboards are already set in stone and it does not influence you as a person AT ALL. So may i ask what your deal with it would be and why you are bothered by it so much? Or are you just influenced by all the negativity and hatred twards MTX as a whole without even looking at the details or the bigger picture? MTX is not a magic thing that let's you pay 1000$ and you are maxed lol.
@@Zorrolordthe problem is paid progression, the entire point of rinescape flexes is the grind , no one cares u cut a tree, people care you cut it for 2000 hours, but who will care when you can buy it for £50
Normally I'd agree and say it was for a sale, but all of these changes take an insane amount of time to prepare, build, announce, and release. Like this is years worth of effort for some of these projects that are finally being shown off. This isn't some quick buildup of goodwill just to burn it on some battlepass, this is years of planning.
The other name for good-will is Public Relations, but in the end all that matter for a company is the profit, isn't?
You engage in public relations to create good-will.
Couldn’t resist. =)
For some reason your comment made me remember that in Cataclysm: BN (not sure about DDA) the police batons have "PR" in their name and the game jokingly suggests it might mean "Public Relations"
@@BoldTint Oh no… 😂
Any company can be morally, creatively, intellectually, and in many other ways bankrupt and go on just fine.
It's the financial kind that will make it stop.
Goodwill is a financial asset, not an imaginary thing.
Jesus, jagex (or Carlyle, whoever makes the top decisions) set this up for an absolute disaster for player experience, and a dick in the salad to whoever buys the company
Sounds like the PLAYERS should buy Jagex to rid it of microtransaction disease, LOL.
....but plz keep the plushies. Anything else should be part of the base membership, period.
good luck getting a billion together...
@@jurgnobs1308 im not going to crunch the numbers but i would guess if every active player donated to a gofund me as much as theyre wallets could bare we could do it lol
Good take.
One thing, OSRS was NOT brought out to avoid MTX - it was in response to EoC.
Unfortunately, everything has to die eventually. It's honestly kinda amazing that it survived so long in a decent state after the first sell out.
You've got to really wonder who the chump is that will buy this though. You'd think they'd do their research and see that the earnings are temporarily inflated due to the half-price sale and whatnot, which will affect the rest of the year's income.
Well, it'll either be a chump that totally messes up and is left holding a bag of fools gold, or a specialist that makes their money essentially closing products like this. They'll basically liquidate the game and squeeze one last lump sum out of the fan base, then put the game on minimal upkeep life support with cash shop intact, so that late comers and old whales who can't give up their sunk cost fallacy can continue to put money into the essentially dead game.
Though, hey, maybe it'll surprise us all and survive a second sell-out.
I agree tbh sadly. I would like to see RS3 and OSRS go to all consoles to live but I feel like if a buyer of the company wanted to somehow make this happen they would want to buy the company real cheap and not what Carlyle are likely inflating it to be sold for.
I would just like to note, that out of jagex's £125m revenue, only £35m is mtx, the rest is subscriptions.
Jagex saves a lot of money on credit card fees alone while selling annual subscriptions.
It's a bit rough saying that rs3 is shielding osrs from mtx, mtx is likely what keeps rs3 still running. Even jagex knows that osrs would die immediately if mtx was involved.
Your point about membership sales increasing this quarter at 3:41 from a financial statement perspective however they wont be able to recognise all of those earnings in one quarter, they will have to recognise this as deferred income and recognised over the entire year (which is the accounting accruals perspective). So yes they may be getting a good wedge of cash flow in and incentivise a higher increase of players grabbing membership (who wouldnt have if it wasnt for the promotion), but doesnt mean they can state all of that revenue in one quarter. But really good video and interesting points!
Players didn't leave rs3 because of mtx, they left because of eoc, and then stayed away because of mtx. If eoc never came out, most of the old playerbase would have stayed loyal to rs3, despite the mtx. And, if mtx was removed from rs3, old players would have left when eoc happened, but then they would have gradually started to come back to rs3.
tbh, back when it was rs3, I honestly didn't mind the optical mtx through that solomons store or what ever it was called. what I hated was people getting huge xp boosts from spins in that wheel thing.
but yea, eoc was the last straw.
I actually really liked being able to do fashion scape while still wearing gear with good stats.
I can pay money for a maid set, a catgirl set, then mix the two? Gacha game players drop how much money for the chance at that? 🥴
Nah, if I wanted to mess with cooldown rotations and higher graphics I'd probably play Final Fantasy 14.
Mtx arrived before eoc. Lots of players quit, but more quit because of eoc.
OSRS does sell merch. i bought the vorkath mouse pad and a mug from their shop. I also love the plushies.
but yes i can understand the growth for a quarter argument. i really like the video, this was the only point i disagreed with.
The plushies (as far as I'm aware) are temporary single-run items on makeship, they aren't going to restock them and only people who "kickstart" them will get them.
Maybe a bit off topic, but might I ask why you are wearing a windshield indoors on your mic?
3:18. $79.99 reduced to $71.99 save 51%?
I don't play mmo, so I might be missing something, but simple math, that is 10% not 51%.
It's math that's not based on its price but on monthly membership costs. 12.50 *12 is like 150 afterall
YEY NEW VIDEO!
Interesting change in format for your videos. I like the quality of the edits, but somehow I also miss the "sitting at my computer chair and showing you the facts via going through their websites." I know this is a wishy-washy statement and doesn't help, but I wanted to tell you the effort is being noticed, Callum! I just don't know which I prefer yet as this new format is just now in its infancy. Then again, this is just the opinion of one person so take it with a grain of salt.
Once again, an opportunity for people to see that every single company is just a money making machine. It doesn't matter, how many good and compassionate people work there, the financial company will choose earning more money, no matter what the other options were
what you're saying is mostly true IF the company is a publicly traded company of which Jagex is. No gaming company should ever go public. The company will then be led by people who only care about money instead of the original vision of the company when it was privately held/traded.
That’s true if you actually want to make a good company you would have to do something about the structure of it. You would have to basically make a gaming cooperative cooperative for it to be good. That way the people who actually work at the place are the board members making the decision. Instead of just like 12 dudes at the top who do what shareholder is not even involved in the operation think is best. Companies can only work whenever they have actual authority over what they are doing and they do not have that when they are publicly traded.
@@smokedbeefandcheese4144 or you can just have a private company since private companies don't have to be publicly traded. Why does it have to be a cooperative?
Just a quick point about the revenue from membership. They wont be able to recognise it all within this quarter as the performance obligations span the full year. They can show it in the cashflow but not in the SPL.
the best way they could monetize OSRS without shaving off a huge amount of players would be to just start catering RS3 updates to them, and getting them invested in RS3 enough that some will inevitably paypig out on spins.
People play OSRS specifically to avoid those spins, though.
OSRS is monetized already. Monthly subscription fee.
@@JohnFromAccounting Bonds as well
Wouldn’t play RS3. Games clearly shit
This game died the moment i saw a pop up goblin offering me xp lamps.
the biggest problem was releasing the hero pass as the "new epic super awesome game changing update for september!" was just a yak track reskin.
If any buyer tries putting mtx on oldschool, it will end badly. Id expect a great number of people to leave, possibly to private servers.
w8 wasn't yak track alredy battle pass thingy? so dobule battle pass?
Nice video thanks
I mean yeah... it really does seem like they will come for oldschool next. Oldschool is the turkey you keep alive and feed it really, really well until thanksgiving. And then thanksgiving comes, and then the turkey starts getting nervous.
"hey look bob, rs3 can't really be monetized anymore, players revolted and quit last time, but we have this other half of our game that has no microtransactions.... and a lot of good will"
I've helped close buy out deals by auditing companies ESG performance. I think your assumption that a strong quarter will somehow help close a deal.
They will deep dive into finances for at least a year if not 3 before they aquire them. 1 really strong quarter would be scrutinized quite a bit. And they will know about the short term profit grab with 1 year membership sales.
I never played Runescape. But i definitely will watch this 😂
Also, man you mic looks a lot like Chevrolet logo haha
HAHA i never noticed that, the DJI logo is hard to read from a distance
Lmao putting yourself in the grand exchange was hilarious
I never though that gaming when I was older would be a constant fight for survival...
I could swear the reason why they are selling it forward is the fact that nobody can handle or do anything to the massive amounts of bots and gp selling. Legally and what not, they are just ducked in every way possible I believe.
i do think there could be space on the market for an "old school old school runescape" if the current one goes bad, but it just would never be as big as the current one
nice vid dude
Goodwill is an actual business/accounting term and it being used in this way hurts my brain.
Agree.
''Good will is currency'' you hear that CA?
As an accountant who works in corporate finance (i.e. buying and selling of companies), some of this is not strictly accurate. Income generated by selling memberships in advance will be recognised in the period to which they relate. it removes the lumpy effects of selling loads now and not selling as much in the future. The inflation of player accounts and memberships via not banning bots however is a much bigger issue and one that would be harder to pick up in DD, but still should not go unnoticed if the buyer knows what to look for. You're spot on though, transactions for OSRS would straight kill it and if this is the case, it serves them right for taking the risk on it.
The only hope for RuneScape at the moment is that potential buyers do their research and recognize that the company they’re buying is not going to make them billions of dollars and will absolutely crumble into dust if they lean into it with monetization.
50% off for a year membership leading right into a controversial monetization feature is basically the bait and switch of cashing out.
As an Old School RuneScape player. If I even see one micro transaction aside from the existing bonds, I'm out
I wonder if this is playing any part in the current issue of jagex not banning any bots rn.
We need an irl equivalent of Falador, where we could protest, just in case
lmao callum took the get your head in the game too literally
If old school goes that route I’ll probably quit too
Listen callum its easy. They either keep Old School as is or im out.
i think this video as a whole is a great demonstration of the major failings of end game capitalism. the only way capitalism works is if infinite people pay infinite money for infinite growth. what happens when you expend every possible asset and acquire every possible customer? the company either needs to entirely switch strategies (like how lightbulbs are legally mandated to fail after certain time frames) or just whither and die.
But there’s 7 pages of old school RuneScape merch on their home page.
no wonder OSRS was met with such goodwill, RS3 was the one shielding them now that the shield is going bad people are worried. Tbh time will tell but my bet is that OSRS will take a hit somewhere too
MTX's in OSRS? Aw hell naw :(
that start .... one of those charecters is not like the others ... one has yellow armor!
I'm hoping any potential buyer doing their due diligence will come across this video.
I think runescape is so different it is worth to keep alive like it is... No one seems to take notice on that?
can someone please explain how a game released 22yrs ago with graphics looking its age could still be considered worth £1bn.
players sick of being treated like a cash-cow: try out Guild Wars 2 and allow yourself to get spoiled by devs who care about the community and respect your time and efforts in the game
Any prospective buyers worth their salt will thoroughly do their due diligence before buying the company, and will see this goodwill bs a mile away, which makes it all the more concerning that the new buyers lack of research could spill over to the lack of understanding the OSRS demographic
you're telling me the browser game i used to play in school before first period is now being sold for a billion dollars??
Hey Callum, thanks for gathering all that information in this and the last video and take us onto that enlightenment journey. Really appreciate and value that!
Is there - besides OSRS - MMO that you can recommend in good conscience?
the 2 reasons osrs came out was 1: didn't have the November 2012 Evolution of Combat update
2: no mtx
Selling year memberships wouldn't actually help their revenue in their financial records. Things like memberships, subscriptions, etc need to meet their performance obligation to become revenue. At the time of sale, the debit is cash and the credit is unearned subscription revenue, which is a liability. They can only amortize it with D: Unearned revenue C: Revenue once the subscription period elapses.
Perhaps I'm not understanding this right but wouldn't a deal where you buy a year's subscription in advance not be subject to partial refunds if you cancel early? I'm pretty sure the whole point of long term pre-bought subscriptions is that they're slightly cheaper for the customer but the customer gets locked into it, meaning it's more reliable income for the company.
So wouldn't a bunch of year long pre-purchased subscriptions be counted as revenue since there's not a refund or cancellation possibility on them? Essentially, they wouldn't be "unearned subscription revenue" sources because they're earned by that point.
Bro what on earth are you talking about, once the sale is made it is revenue, you don't have to wait for the purchased subscription to be over for the company to count it as revenue
Any publicly traded company is ultimately only concerned with the bottom line. They will continuously degrade your user experience in the name of making a quick buck to boost next quarter's earnings report.
Tencent would be nice. They usually leave games alone and focus on the Chinese versions
If they really want to make money, they would have to drop the price on bonds to a more reasonable price to not only bring in more sales but deter botters.
Wait, this stuff is Old School content. I was looking for the RS3 content.
would they ever be able to sell in game gp off their website for osrs?? would the new owners be willing to go that far?? because the way i see it they loss a ton of possible revenue to the black market for what, integrity reasons or is their laws preventing them from doing so? all im saying is if its roughly 40-50 cents a mill black market why wouldnt they get into the legal business of selling in game currency?
Slow down, it was like 10% less for premiere membership ( 12 months) during the summer summit vs normally. That point is moot.
I pray mtx isn't added to OSRS. I was so glad when I found my way back to this game, to get away from all the battle passes, etc. Honestly I'm not even sure I would continue playing and therefore I'll make my voice heard about it, because I want to keep playing. Superior dragon bones to chaos altar then we pray!
I wouldn't mind mtx on osrs with cosmetics, but any xp/item mtx and i'm out
1:59 how is this not an inflation of the true value of runescape? they are clearly cashing in, and not going to be able to sustain the profits they get from the first wave of monetization. why is inflated value sometimes a legal way to make money, and sometimes completely illegal?
Blizzard has been cashing out for years but they never deposited any money.
and here i sat though maybe after all this time its time to go and play again...
They offer the "50%" off premier mems every year. Its nothing new. Just need to be patient which most players arent. They renew as soon as last years runs out at full price
As an avid RS player for over 17 years, and an OSRS player since day 1, I believe we have nothing to worry about when it comes to OSRS in terms of microtransactions or pay-to-win.
Sadly, yes, the game has gotten a lot less "old school" in the last 3 years, but one thing that I truly believe would put a nail in the financial coffin of this game would be microtransactions.
We may all be addicted to this dopamine machine, but I believe mtx to be SO AGAINST the ethos of OSRS, that even the most hooked Gielinor junkies would quit over them.
runescape can always live on in the form of private servers
Pretty sure that potenciel investors consider more than last month of revenue when buying a company for 1 bil lol
its astounding how one side of the same markerting department literally couldnt do better... and the other side is just yikes. i really feel bad for the rs3 devs at this point, i dont believe they want to be doing this anymore. i have a feeling osrs will get micros whenever rs3 dies, that will be the straw for the owners. -_-
Players can only ever "win" if they can walk away and there is a suitable alternative. The cost-sunk fallacy comes to mind, and there isn't another Runescape.
Winning here is walking away and doing something else; the game will always evolve to keep from dying and most of the evolution will be directly dependent on ownership.
Im pretty sure Runescape had merch as early as 2008...