I was a designer for RuneScape – its comeback reveals how old games can be rejuvenated
RuneScape experienced a surge of popularity over the 2025 holiday season. While fan nostalgia for a game that is now 25 years old plays a role, the revival more clearly reflects recent changes to RuneScape’s controversial monetisation – changes that appear to be drawing players back.
I worked at RuneScape from 2008 until 2014. First as a content developer – a designer, writer and implementer for the frequent updates – then as a senior designer, design lead and product owner for non-subscription monetisation.
Runescape is a multiplayer fantasy roleplaying video game, originally played via web browser but now downloadable. It was venerable even when I joined, and the questions that were on my team’s minds at the time are still relevant now – particularly around risks and benefits of courting player nostalgia, preserving versus modernising the game, and how to monetise in a sensitive way.
Reliable player numbers for RuneScape are hard to come by. The game’s publisher Jagex publishes real-time concurrent player counts, which show clear long-term trends, but does not release monthly active user figures. While exact revenue breakdowns are not public, changes in active players still matter because engaged players are the most likely to subscribe or spend.
The RuneScape franchise includes the main game, which has been live since 2001, and Old School RuneScape. The latter was launched in 2013 as a deliberately preserved version of the game as it existed in 2007, aimed at nostalgic players.
A comparison of active players shows that Old School RuneScape doesn’t share the current surge in RuneScape’s popularity. It had a peak in April 2025, which is difficult to attribute because Sailing – Old School RuneScape’s first new skill since 2013 – was added later in the year.
The skill allows players to captain custom ships, explore vast oceans and discover new islands. Sailing itself highlights the fascinating dichotomy of making substantial additions to a game whose tradition and timelessness were such a selling point.
There’s much to be said about nostalgia as a player motivation; including players long absent from RuneScape returning to it, and those travelling back via Old School RuneScape. Research on World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft Classic suggests that nostalgia may be tied less to game mechanics than to social presence – the experience of a densely populated world. Returning players may find that this social dimension no longer exists in the same form.
RuneScape – balanced more toward modernisation than Old School RuneScape’s respect for long-standing players – is experiencing a revival of its own. Nostalgia may be a factor, but a more immediate explanation for December’s player spike lies in one of the game’s enduring development tensions: how far Jagex can modernise and monetise the game without alienating its most loyal players.
The influence of monetisation
In 2012, RuneScape added options for microtransactions – additional payments on top of or alongside subscriptions. These included a conventional store and a game of chance for cosmetic upgrades or gameplay-affecting items.
An additional revenue stream is important to a publisher; a subscription limits how much can be earned from players with greater spending power and generates nothing from those who cannot afford it.
Resistance to microtransactions is well documented in western markets, particularly when players perceive them as double charging or as granting unfair competitive advantages. Publishers often continue despite negative reactions, as seen in the controversy around the Blizzard game Diablo Immortal in 2022.
This secondary monetisation was often heavily adjusted, even while I worked on the original implementation and oversaw that group in 2013-14. Since 2014, RuneScape also had a polls system and a remarkably powerful programme of letting player choice influence development.
October 2025 introduced a poll for players to approve a considerable rework to reduce and stabilise the impact of microtransactions on player progression. It passed the required 100,000 votes on the first day. The vote wasn’t left to chance, though. For Jagex, under new CEO Jon Bellamy, it’s part of a strategy to “restore” RuneScape “even if it hurts the bottom line”. The result of the vote was predictable but valuable in proving this viewpoint isn’t just a vocal minority.
The surge suggests it’s working so far. Whether these players remain active and subscribed remains to be seen: some may be returning from 2012, and their nostalgia for RuneScape as it was may not fit the current game. Others might have been long-term players had it not been for the monetisation. It may attract new players, familiar with the game but deterred by the billing model.
Also unpredictable is whether additional subscriptions will restore the lost revenue. Some of the key monetisation features remain – including Bonds, which allow cash-rich players to buy game-time that can be sold for in-game currency to time-rich players – so Jagex’s financial flexibility remains better than subscriptions alone. The move is “something most games wouldn’t dare” according to gaming news platform Polygon, and should be very popular with players. But will that goodwill translate into enough shifted revenue?
I’m pleased with the outcome and I suspect others who’ve worked on RuneScape monetisation would share that. That balance between happy players and the bottom line – which can easily fail in either direction – was always difficult to maintain. While contributing to studio health is satisfying, I hope there are several developers soon being freed up to work on other content.
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Matthew Holland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.