Jagex

Jagex Ltd. (also known as Jagex Software which means Java Gaming Experts) is a United Kingdom-based producer of Java-based online video games. The company is best-known for its MMORPG, RuneScape. Jagex is a well-received company, ranking 59th on the Sunday Times' 100 Best Companies to Work For list.

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 April 28, 2000, and changed its name to Jagex Limited on June 27, 2000. Jagex was ranked 59th on the list of The Best 100 Companies to work for by the Sunday Times.

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 are many rumors of Jagex's next big release - we can confirm, at least, that Jagex will be releasing a new MMOG. Many believe that this release - rumored to be scheduled for the end of this year - will be MechScape, a futuristic MMOG that will break away from RuneScape's homely roots. As of yet, it is not officially confirmed by Jagex, but suspicions are strong.

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 300 employees, grouped into the Development, Publishing, Web Content, Minigame, and Customer Relations teams.

They maintain about 161 servers for RuneScape in various locations around the United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom. One of the most recent additions to the servers was the addition of the four German beta servers, which are currently the only servers for a non-English version of the game. Their current major focus is on translating RuneScape into non-English markets, primarily working on a recently-released German translation of the game.

Jagex is currently translating RuneScape into a French version, although a release date has not been announced.

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

Games

 * Vertigo

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 or two to days. 40% of the website is available for free while the other 60% is available to persons who pay the membership fee. Jagex offers a discount for those who are paying members of both RuneScape and FunOrb.

It was originally released with 17 games, and in keeping with their promise of an update every two weeks, it now has a total of 26.

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.

YouTube channel
Jagex now has its 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 nine videos. The first seven videos are previews of FunOrb games. The last two videos are about the July 2008 major graphics update.