Jagex


 * This article or section contains links to our sister sites, the FunOrb Wiki and the Jagex 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 name is pronounced [ˈdʒæɡɛks], as spoken by former CEO Geoff Iddison in August 2008. The company is best-known for its MMORPG RuneScape.

Jagex is a well-received company, ranking 59th on the Sunday Times' 100 Best Companies in the UK to Work For list for 2007, having been unranked for 2006. However, this slipped to number 87 for 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". Andrew Gower tweeted on the RuneFest Twitter that the original Jagex office was "two meters by three meters with a table and PC we had borrowed".

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 £3.20 ($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. The company had been self-funded before this investment. RuneScape has since been translated into German, French and recently in Portuguese. Jagex was ranked 59th on the list of The Best 100 Companies to work for by the Sunday Times.

Jagex co-creator Andrew Gower still works with Jagex workers every day.

Future development


Jagex have stated on their website that they "intend to become a significant online operator in all the major gaming markets worldwide" by developing new games using their own technologies."

There have been many rumours of Jagex's next big release, and Jagex has confirmed that it will be releasing a new MMOG called MechScape. This game, which was planned to be released in Q1 of 2009, but was delayed, will probably be called MechScape, although Jagex changed its name to Stellar Dawn. It will be a futuristic MMOG that will break away from RuneScape's homely roots but will still be browser based. The game will be aimed at a higher age range and will be slightly or wholly sci-fi. It was officially confirmed by Jagex at the gaming event E3 on 15 July 2008. However it was canceled in August 2009 but confirmed on a mechscape forum (mechscapeworld) to being redone and get a name change to Stellar Dawn.

Jagex also acts as the publisher of the online flash-based game called "War of Legends". It is a multiplayer real time strategy game.

Operation
Jagex has grown since the founding of the company in 2001. They currently have offices in Cambridge and London. The company had been recruiting heavily in 2006 and has over 350 employees, grouped into the Development, Publishing, Web Content, Activity, and Customer Relations teams.

They maintain about 161 servers for RuneScape in various locations in The United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Some of the more recent additions to the servers include the addition of the German, French and Portuguese servers. These are currently the only servers for non-English versions of the game thus far, but Jagex has confirmed that more languages are planned.

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

Classic Jagex Games

 * Vertigo (A new version Entitled Vertigo 2 has been released on FunOrb)
 * 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 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 here. 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
 * Meltdown (Dr. Phlogiston Saves the Earth is a possible remake of this game.)
 * 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
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 Arcanists. 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 2010.

Previously, if one attempted to go to Stellardawn.com, they would be redirected to FunOrb.com.

On 14 July 2010, the Stellar Dawn website has been put up. On the website, users can sign up to be part of a closed beta. The Stellar Dawn website also has its own forums, but are connected with the FunOrb and War of Legends forums.

Charity Fund Raising
Since 2004 Jagex has made donations to a number of national and international charities. It has also run charity auctions for signed merchandise.

In 2008 they donated artwork and prizes to the MMOCalendar, which raises funds for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

In the past 4 years, Jagex has donated money to charity, broken down as below.


 * Year ending 6 March - £106,000
 * Year ending 7 March - £157,000
 * Year ending 8 March - £147,000
 * Current year to date - £127,000

The charities that Jagex have donated to include:


 * Save the Children
 * CAFOD
 * Hamlin Churchill Childbirth Injuries Fund
 * Cancer Research
 * Cystic Fibrosis Trust
 * The University of Pennsylvania
 * Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign
 * Bury Bombers Wheelchair Basketball
 * SOS Children's Villages
 * East Anglican Children's Hospice (EACH)

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 seventeen videos.

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.

DeviousMUD
In 1999 Jagex created a game called "DeviousMUD", now called RuneScape. DeviousMUD was never opened to the public. DeviousMUD's subline was "DeviousMUD by Andrew Gower"

Jagex Server Station
View via Google Street View