RuneScape has 300 million registered users.

How Jagex turned RuneScape into a ‘living game’

Jagex launched its RuneScape massively multiplayer online role-playing game in 2001, and 17 years later, the free-to-play fantasy game is still going strong. The game has been played by more than 250 million people, and it has undergone two major upgrades. In 2013, it release Old School RuneScape to keep original fans happy, and it created a fork that focused on more modern gameplay. A mobile version is coming this year.

In 2016, Cambridge, England-based Jagex was acquired by a Chinese company, Hongtou, which was then purchased by Zhonghi Holding, later renamed Fukong Interactive Entertainment. After all of that financial maneuvering, the company went quiet. Phil Mansell, a longtime employee, became CEO of the company in early 2017, and he kept his head down to focus on remaking both Jagex and RuneScape.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.