Jagex

This article contains info from our sister Wiki, the RuneScape Wiki.

Jagex Ltd. (also known as Jagex Software or JaGeX Games Studio) is a United Kingdom-based producer of Java-based online video games, whose name is a contracted form of Java Gaming Experts or Just About the Gaming Experience. The company is best-known for its MMORPG RuneScape, and is currently working on the new, flash, online strategy game War of Legends with developer Ultizen.

Jagex is a well-received company, ranking 59th on the Sunday Times' 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 2007, having been unranked for 2006. However, this slipped to number 87 in 2008.

History

The name Jagex Software has been in use since at least 1999 and was originally described as a "small software company based in England [who] specialise in producing top-quality Java-games for webpages".

According to Companies House, Meaujo (492) Limited was incorporated on 28 April 2000, and changed its name to Jagex Limited on 27 June 2000. The Jagex website states that the company was founded in December 2001 by Andrew Gower, Paul Gower, and Constant Tedder. The aim of this company was to operate its MMORPG, RuneScape , which had been in development since 1999. By the time of the company's founding, one year after the release of the game, RuneScape already had over one million free accounts registered. The first tasks of the company were to create a version of the game with extra features that required a £3.25 ($5 USD) monthly fee, while still offering the free version, and to develop partnerships with advertisers. Both tasks were achieved, and the pay-to-play version of RuneScape was released on 27 February 2002, gaining 5,000 subscriptions in the first week making RuneScape one of the largest Java pay-to-play games in the world. On 4 May 2007, Jagex announced that RuneScape has over 9,000,000 free players and over 1,000,000 pay-to-play subscribers.

In 2006, Andrew and Paul Gower were calculated to be worth £32 million. On "The Rich List 2007", Andrew and Paul are under claims to be worth £106 million ($190 million USD). Andrew Gower is also known for his varieties of Java games. Jagex also received an investment from Insight Venture Partners in October 2005.

Jagex have stated on their website that they "intend to become a significant online operator in all the major gaming markets worldwide"

Jagex Games

While most of the work by Jagex staff now deals with RuneScape and War of Legends, they still maintain one classic game which can be played on their corporate website and many games that can be played in FunOrb.

RuneScape

RuneScape, a Java-based MMORPG created by Jagex Ltd is the cause of the company's popularity. RuneScape has achieved the second most played MMORPG games in the world, and the most popular free MMORPG in the world for two years in a row.

The game was released to general public on January 4th, 2001. Ever since the beginning of its release, RuneScape has been played in a web browser; it requires no download. A membership service was offered since February 27th, 2002. Since then, RuneScape has more than one million member accounts.

Gameplay offers quests that may be completed, skills that may be trained, or engaging in combat with NPCs (Non-player characters). Players may interact with one another from all over the world by talking, trading, or participating in minigames together. Only players thirteen and older may talk freely; those younger must use Quick Chat.

find more information here

Classic Jagex Games

• Vertigo (A new version Entitled Vertigo 2 has been released on FunOrb )
• Flea Circus (The original version has been taken off the Jagex site and has been replaced with a new version on FunOrb.)
• Tetralink (Can be found on the FunOrb site as a newer version.)
• CyberWars
• WarShips
• Checkers (Re-Formatted to Draughts in the Burthorpe Games Room.)
• Chess (A multiplayer version of the game can now be found on FunOrb.)
• Reversi (Re-formatted to Runeversi in the Burthorpe Games Room.)
• Go-Mad
• SlimeWar or Ataxtix (Renamed to ViroGrid, can be found on FunOrb.)
• Monkey Puzzle (Renamed to Monkey Puzzle 2, can be found on FunOrb, although the original version can still be found on the Jagex website via link manipulation, which can be found here.)
• The Bottomless Pit was an old animation by Jagex that was listed as a game... It was a never ending animation. It would display a series of messages, each with a delay of around 5 seconds at the bottom of the screen while an animation of falling into endless darkness was shown, and then the messages would start over once they were all displayed. There was also a seamlessly looping sound of a falling noise The Bottomless Pit is no longer available on the Jagex website. However it can be found at [1] . If you would watch The Bottomless Pit for long enough, you would discover that it actually tells you cheat codes for various classic Jagex games, but those who would use the cheat codes would not have their scores saved to the high scores table.
• Outpost
• Goldmine, The original can be found here
• Meltdown (Dr. Phlogiston Saves the Earth is a possible remake of this game.) Can be found here.
• Meteoroids (Stellar Shard is a possible remake of this game.)

These are just some of the games. A full list can be found here.

FunOrb

A full list of FunOrb games can be found here: List of all FunOrb games

In February 2008, Jagex announced that they would be releasing a casual browser-based gaming site called FunOrb within the month. FunOrb was released on 27 February 2008. It uses the same account information as RuneScape, but requires a separate membership.

The site hosts small games varying in amount of possible playtime from an hour to two days. Some of the website and games are completely free-to-play, although members receive many other benefits, such as many Achievements, fullscreen mode for all games, and access to more features in nearly all games. Jagex offers a discount for those who are paying members of both RuneScape and FunOrb.

It was originally released with 18 games, and in keeping with their promise of an update every two weeks, it now has a total of 39.

The most popular game on the site is the turn-based multiplayer game Arcanists, in which the player takes on the role of an aspiring wizard who battles against his or her rivals in destructible arenas.

Jagex has used almost exclusively the popularity of RuneScape to gain patrons for this site, with almost all FunOrb players being either current or former RuneScape players due to very little advertising.

In January 2009, Jagex released a multiplayer game called Armies of Gielinor. This is the game that is set in the RuneScape universe they promised to release. You can summon beasts such as Black Knights, greater Demons, Aviansies, and other monsters from the RuneScape universe. It has become one of the most popular games on FunOrb.

MechScape

Rumoured during parts of 2007 and throughout 2008, MechScape is Jagex's new MMORPG, which was due for release in the first quarter of 2009. However, the MechScape project has since been dropped. Building on the MechScape game engine, Jagex plans to release a new MMO, possibly Stellar Dawn, in 2011.
Official Thread Discussing MechScape

YouTube channel

Also in early 2008, Jagex created their own YouTube channel, called "thejagexchannel", which is "The official YouTube channel for Jagex Ltd, producers of quality online games based on Java technology. Jagex has verified the authenticity of the channel, and has stated that it is permissible for RuneScape players to discuss openly the videos on the channel. This is an exception to their general policy, which is that discussion of specific YouTube videos in-game is prohibited.

The channel currently contains ten videos. The first seven videos are previews of FunOrb games. The last two videos are about the July 2008 major graphics update.

Back in 2006, a player had made a YouTube channel and titled it "jagex", though currently disclaims to actually be Jagex. Probably for this reason, Jagex the company named their channel "thejagexchannel".

Jagex also has a twitter account called Official Jagex, a Facebook, and a LiveJournal called "TheJagexLJ".

It has been noted by Mark Gerhard that he will be using the Jagex YouTube page more and will be interacting more with RuneScape players on YouTube.