Kotaku: Runescape

Runescape is Getting a Facelift. Here's Some Art.

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:00:00 EST

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Here's something cool. Runescape, the venerable (and hideous) MMO that's now over ten years old, is getting a graphical overhaul later this year. More »

The Creators Of RuneScape Take-On Massively Multiplayer Transformers [Update]

Mike Fahey — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EDT

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Autobots wage their battles to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons online next year, as Hasbro grants the power to create a massively multiplayer online game based on the robots in disguise to Jagex, the folks behind popular free-to-play MMO RuneScape. More »

Online Gaming Marriage Leads To Real-World Criminal Charges

Mike Fahey — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 15:20:00 EST

A 54-year-old Massachusetts man is in police custody in Detroit after allegedly initiating multiple sexual encounters with his virtual bride - a 13-year-old girl he married in the online role-playing game Runescape. More »

My, A Lot Of People Play Runescape

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:30:00 EDT

Runescape tends to fly along under most people's radars. Maybe because it's free, maybe because it's browser-based, maybe because of both. Doesn't matter! Game's still insanely popular. More »

Wii, 360 And...Runescape Top Yahoo! Search Queries For 2008

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:30:00 EST

It's no Google, but in the absence of Google's stats, it'll have to do: according to Yahoo!, the Wii, 360, PSP and even PS3 were amongst the 10 most-searched for technology items for 2008. More »

Runescape More Popular Than Jessica Alba

Mike Fahey — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:40:00 EST

Yahoo! has published their list of the most searched terms of 2008, and popular free MMO Runescape has actually made the cut, coming in at number 5, beating out Naruto, Jessica Alba, and Lindsay Lohan. More »

Runescape Theft Lands Dutch Duo In Hot Water

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:40:00 EDT

In the Netherlands, as you may already be aware, some laws can be a little...different. One of those instances is related to gaming, in that if you're an MMO player, your virtual goods are - according to Dutch law - as good as real goods. Which is why two Runescape players, aged 15 and 14, have been convicted of coercing another player, aged 13, out of a "virtual amulet and a virtual mask". For their crimes, the 15 year-old copped 200 hours community service, while the 14 year-old was given 160 hours worth. Remember, virtual deviants: in Holland, you do the crime, you do the time. More »

Runescape Launches PVP Worlds

Mike Fahey — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:40:00 EDT

In the works for quite awhile, primitive though still wildly popular among fans free MMO Runescape has just launched PVP worlds, special PVP servers where players can fight against other players with their precious, precious items at risk. Characters are required to have a combat level of 20 to even enter a PVP world, where combat may be initiated anywhere but a few choice safe areas such as banks, a fact that is sure to make banks very crowded indeed. More »

RuneScape High Detail Subscriber Beta Is Go

Mike Fahey — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:40:00 EDT

Jagex has launched the live beta of their long-awaited RuneScape update, RuneScape High Detail. The popular free browser-based MMO has had its graphics completely overhauled to better appeal to people finally ready to leave Ultima Online behind. The beta is really only a beta to forgive any bugs that might crop up, as subscribers who join the beta do so with their live characters, with anything that occurs in beta carrying over when the beta ends. More »

How Casual MMOGs Are Making Money

Maggie Greene — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Lightspeed, a venture capital firm, checked out the average revenue per user for some casual, free to play MMOGs (Club Penguin, Habbo Hotel, Runescape, and Second Life), establishing that other that SL - which pulls in a little over $9 a month in ARPU, thanks mostly to virtual land upkeep - these sorts of casual MMOGs pull in around $1.25 ARPU per month. Which, until one considers the user bases of games like Club Penguin, seems like a damn hard way to make some money: More »

MMO Gold Trading Should Be Tackled By Content

Mark Wilson — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:40:44 EST

RuneScape content manager Imre Jele wins the gold star for best intelligent comment of ~~2008~~ Monday morning. When discussing the issue of black market gold trading, he explained:

"To be honest, I think instead of real-world trading, games have to be designed in a way that they provide enough fun while you are getting somewhere; if I am incapable of providing you with enough fun while you collect that 1000 gold for a steed, then the game is not good enough.

So, so true. True enough, in fact, that we'll disregard his horrible metaphor in which he likened little kids buying gold on eBay to sex-starved grownups funding dangerous, criminal prostitution rings. More »

Neilsen's PC Game Rankings - Surprise

Mike Fahey — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 10:40:48 EDT

Nielsen GamePlay Metrics, a new system from the company that introduced the all-important television tracking system back in the 1940's, has just released their first batch of data on PC game usage for the month of June, and who came out on top may astound you. Okay, so it completely won't astound you that World of Warcraft came out on top with an average of 17 hours played a week, doubling that of its closest competitor, Halo: Combat Evolved with only 8.5 hours played per week. As you can see from the chart, most of the titles are more enduring, older games than hot new PC titles. An interesting look at PC game usage, though I suggest they save the table template with WoW at the top just to make things easier on themselves for the foreseeable future. More »

Top 10 MMOs

Kim Phu — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 13:40:00 EDT

In news outside of the console industry, the top ten most popular MMO games have been listed. Not surprisingly, World of Warcraft is sitting pretty at number one, but the rest of the list is a bit of a head scratcher. Habbo Hotel, that Finnish playable MySpace to the youth, comes in second, which begs the question,"How old do you have to be to own a credit card these days?!": More »

Active MMO Subscriptions, '97 to '06

Joel — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 10:17:12 EDT

I have no idea what the source of this chart is, but glancing at the most current numbers it seems pretty accurate to me. (If you know the source, email me and I'll gladly update this post.) More »