Hello Scapers,
You may have seen the recent Player Value Survey that caused quite a bit of speculation in the community. Today, I want to talk to that survey – and what comes next.
Just before I do, I just want to quickly reflect on the past few months and how the RuneScape team have embraced their mission to be more player involved than ever.
When I look at the recent RuneScape Ahead showing nearly a year of content ahead of us, or the much-increased transparency of their content development through things like Right Click Examine, through to getting back to regular content releases that deliver on what you want to see – I can really see the progress. I hope you feel it too.
While content is the main part of the tapestry that is RuneScape, there are other aspects of the game too, including the commercial features like Membership, Premier Membership, Bonds, Solomon’s Store and Treasure Hunter. Just as the 2024 Player Survey provided valuable insight that inspired our latest content roadmap, we felt it was time to expand our efforts assessing the other offerings within RuneScape.
The Survey
A few weeks ago, the team launched a bespoke Player Value survey to dive deeper into your perspectives on offerings beyond Membership – including Treasure Hunter & Solomon’s Store – and how they impact your experience with RuneScape.
It’s been a while since we did a survey that delved into MTX in this depth, and it was important to do it in a way that allows us to get more ‘quantified’ view of player responses across a representative cross-section of the community. That included asking some pretty direct questions that you’re probably not used to seeing from us.
While I can’t go into the results given they are commercially sensitive, there were a lot of important perspectives shared with us in that survey. Most importantly, it’s led us to a major decision – we are committing to a Community Consultation on the MTX offerings in RuneScape.
What This Means
So what do I mean when I talk about a Community Consultation?
In essence, we are willing to explore meaningful changes to the MTX offerings in RuneScape. By working with players in a Community Consultation, we get to better understand more about what the issues are and why, and to explore new ideas and potential alternatives - balanced with ensuring we’re responsibly meeting the financial needs of the game. This isn’t a ‘yay/nay’ approach, but a process influenced by feedback.
I want to be straight with you that this is not a quick or simple path. Our community is large and diverse, meaning we have a range of different views, and any change can impact different players in different ways.
We need to consider those who do find value in what's currently offered and understand how it may affect their willingness to play the game, especially given many of these offerings have been in the game almost as long as they haven't now.
We need to understand what value we offer that is positive, and how we could explore options that build on that in a way that feels right to most players.
Critically, for the long-term prospects of the game, decisions we make have a business reality to them, too. We must ensure we are making considered changes that keep RuneScape development financially healthy.
For example; if the consultation leads us down a path where we consider the removal of Treasure Hunter, we would need to explore what alternative offerings could counter-balance the impact of that decision.
All that said, this is a challenge we are ready for and we’re excited to work with players to explore the possibilities.
The Next Steps
This is the first time in RuneScape’s history we’ve decided to do anything like this. For some, that will be an exciting prospect - for others, it won’t be nearly enough. We aren’t promising what will come out of this, but we are committing to taking it seriously.
Things are still early in this process. Right now, we’re prioritising understanding the various groups of players and views identified in the survey, through both a mix of deeper-dive targeted surveys and focus groups.
Alongside this work, the team are currently working hard on defining the full plan for the Community Consultation that will power this process. Look for more information on that next month.
As for where this all leads? That’s something we’ll discover through this process. Right now, we need to keep building a picture of player perspectives and use that as our baseline to build from as we consider the future of additional offerings in RuneScape.
I hope that provides some important context on what's ahead of us. Thank you for anyone who shared their opinion in the recent Player Value survey.