Jagex's Recent Changes - A Veteran Player's Perspective
Introduction
As a long-time OSRS player, it’s been disheartening to see the direction Jagex is taking under their new ownership by CVC. Back in the day, Jagex always put the community first, but lately, it feels like they’re more focused on squeezing every last dollar out of us rather than improving the game we love.
Price Increases and Broken Promises
Last year, they sent out a survey asking players what price increases we’d find acceptable, throwing in ideas like removing microtransactions from RS3 to soften the blow. The community wasn’t having it, and the backlash was so strong that the CEO had to issue an apology. But what happened next? A couple of months later, they raised membership prices by 12% anyway, completely ignoring what we had to say.
Lack of Improvements
The frustrating part isn’t even the price hike itself—it’s the fact that we’ve been asking for years for things like real customer support and the ability to have multiple characters on one subscription. If they had bundled these improvements with the price increase, people might have been more understanding. Instead, we’re now paying $14 a month for a single character with practically zero customer support. If you run into an issue, good luck—your best bet is to go viral on Reddit or Twitter and hope a J-Mod sees it, unless you're a big content creator. Meanwhile, other MMOs like WoW give you up to 65 characters on one sub for $15, plus actual support.
Community Expectations vs. Reality
What really stings is that the community expected better service with the price hike. Instead, we got nothing but higher costs. To make it worse, they didn’t even honor their promise to grandfather in annual memberships, something they clearly stated in their Terms and Conditions. They later went back and quietly removed that clause, hoping no one would notice.
New Survey and More Price Increases
Now, Jagex has sent out another survey about more price increases, offering various tiers with different perks. Some of the stuff they’re dangling in front of us—like improved customer support—is what we’ve been asking for all along. But of course, it’s locked behind the most expensive tier at around $33 a month. And the cheapest tier? It comes with ads, just like every greedy streaming service out there.
The Future of OSRS
Honestly, it feels like they’re slowly trying to turn OSRS into a mobile-style gacha game, where the best features are locked behind steep paywalls. It’s obvious they’re trying to milk the game for all it’s worth to please their new owners, with zero regard for the loyal community that’s stuck by them for years.
Conclusion
It’s frustrating to see Jagex losing touch with what made OSRS great in the first place. They’re pushing players away with these money-grabbing tactics, and if they keep this up, they’re going to lose the trust and support of the community that’s kept this game alive for so long.
 |
Off Topic -> Runescape
