Jagex profit margins are insane. It will never be enough as they're completely owned by a VC capital firm.
this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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I just started playing Oldschool RS a couple months ago for the first time since like 2009. It's incredibly fun and chill with an insane amount of content. The old content is super nostalgic and the new content is high quality stuff. It's right up my alley.
I'm happy to have this game as one of my very few subscriptions.
I sometimes wonder if stuff like this is why I lose my interest in games every couple of years and take years long breaks.
The classics never had micro transactions and still hold up and have mods. I replayed fable recently and had a lot of fun and nostalgia
I find myself replaying games 90% of the time.
Just revisiting those wonderful places. I don't see them in the games these days but waiting on next Fallout or Elder Scroll / Dark Soul / Zelda
The time demands of raiding in WoW made me drop the game cold turkey.
Also worth noting that they fucked over their longest continuous supporters by rug-pulling their grandfather rates after promising they wouldn't be touched. That is a huge slap in the face for anyone who considers supporting them going forward.
I also want to note that they’ve just:
Removed all pay to win elements
Removed all loot box and fomo purchases
Added the ability to toggle off other people’s cosmetics in the settings
Removed all “dailies”, “hourlies” and any content that would pressure you to log in or not do the activity you’d rather do
They overhauled the combat system last week to be more intuitive
Are releasing a whole new continent on the 28th to give new players a taste of endgame activities like bossing
The price increase is on the annual subscription, and as a new player I’m letting my monthly sub roll another month. Not saying it doesn’t suck for long-time players but it’s what, another $40 for a game you intend to play for a whole year and will get hundreds of hours out of?
I just started playing RuneScape last month as part of a “group Ironman” and have been having a blast. I want to note this is the new RuneScape and not “Old School”. I honestly think it’s going to surpass OSRS at this rate.
I'm pretty sure the price increase is for OSRS also, but they just don't get anything.
Anyway, I somewhat agree with your argument. You get what you pay for, and if you want the game to not have MTX then you're going to pay more (possibly, increased players could counteract this). I wouldn't use an "hours played" metric to defend this though. I think it's a bad metric even for regular games, but especially RS where it's a "second monitor game" much of the time. Enjoyment/$ is the metric that matters. It's harder to measure (as it should be, as it's subjective), but it's actually the reason we play games.
Oh I’m not even arguing that the price increase has a justification.
I just think the games are still worth it at the higher price and that RS3 might be underrated now.
Still the second price hike and all of that occurred right after the first price hike. Players assumed the first hike was the trade-off to get rid of MTX since that was already the discussion at the time.
RuneScape is definitely fun though, I'm not disputing that.
$40 seems a drop in the bucket compared to about 20 years ago when I was then toiling in a Korean F2P while watching the whales turbo-grind their way to lvl200, spending several times more than a game in a shrink-wrapped box.
I highly doubt RS3 will outpace OSRS ever. The majority of the money Jagex pulls in is through OSRS, that’s why it gets so much more content. RS3 can be fun for the certain group of people but OSRS is just a behemoth.
It’s definitely not just about raw content. OSRS primarily exists because of the failings of RS3’s monetization and first combat rework.
Both have been MUCH improved now and finally the good of RS3 can shine, primarily the graphical fidelity, UI modernization, and combat that isn’t a pile of engine exploits discovered by players and embraced by devs who were happy to use bugs as features.
RS3 has lots of unique content that OSRS doesn’t have, with better designed bosses (I’m told) and regions like Anachronia. Even OSRS was behind RS3 in content for a long time considering it was an old fork from a previous version that the devs were cautious about updating, so there isn’t a large gap here.
I believe RS3 now has a better foundation than old school, and I suspect there will be a gradual increase in new players (and curious OSRS players) over time. As a new player that’s why I chose it over OSRS at least. I tried both and RS3 just feels way better to play.
As a player who played RS2 back in 2004, and quit with the combat rework. Started playing OSRS in 2018, and tried RS3 last year. RS3 feels too cluttered with bullshit to feel nice to play. Everywhere you go, there's some shiny, sparkling bunch of content doing everything it can to convince you to drop everything you're doing, and try it instead. It feels claustrophobic with the amount of crap littered literally everywhere. Like playing "ADHD the game".
The graphics don't really matter to me, but if they did, OSRS has graphical options, like the 117 HD mod, the HD client, and coming soon-ish (probably(maybe)) the new official client with a HD rework.
I don't see what RS3 supposedly has, that would want me to play it, instead of OSRS.
Hey maybe it’s changed a lot in the last year. I know they cut out flash events for example. It’s felt very chill for me but I bet you have more context with your OSRS background
That's definitely some important context.
Just a gentle reminder that 2009Scape exists and you can play it offline with member benifits.
There's a scape for every major version of RS you could have nostalgia for. It's beautiful.
Nostalgia, then I remember all the grind involved and lose any interest in grindy MMOs...
Just give me castle wars tbh
2009Scape allows you to play with 1, 2, or 5 times XP in normal mode, or up to 10x in IronMan mode.
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I can finally get some coal without 300 people on the same vein
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And for that price WoW offers 65? character slots, while RS offers the whole 1.
Tbf to Jagex. An RS or OSRS character doesn't need an alt in the same way you need to be able to have different builds in WOW.
Main, Ironman and a few different PvP builds? €50/month +
The only thing that kind of saves it is being able to buy bonds, but you'll need a constant flow of cash for that.
Yes, in RS your character is a jack of all trades. People who make alts in RS do it for an ironman char or for money/item making and drops.
Ff14 also lets you play all classes in one character but they still let you make alts.
Honestly can't comprehend why anyone would make alts aside from access to additional retainers for free and maybe playing across data centers, but playing the main story is a fucking GRAND EPIC ADVENTURE that takes about 200 goddamn hours. You will literally never run out of things to do on one character in ff14. Ever.
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And WoW offers an API for plugins like boss assistants.
Well OSRS has teamed up with RuneLite which also offers an API.
Finally
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It comes as a surprise to me that they charge to play RuneScape and people ~~fall~~ pay for it
"i dont like something and so no one else should" there are people who like the game. Its an mmo, so there are costs inherent in that, server, full time staff etc. It is not unreasonable to ask for some amount of money to keep the game going with updates. Is this price point unreasonable and greedy? Sure feels like it. Is your comment even more unreasonable? Definitely.
It's pretty fun these days actually, new endgame bosses come out every now and then, they've added a ton of new skills, and they removed their lootbox mechanic and have done a lot to get rid of the daily FOMO grind. Lifted daily caps on some activities, gotten rid of others.
I haven't played in half a year, but honestly, a lot of the changes they've been talking about are a huge positive for the game.
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