We’re going to play a fun new game today. It’s called Who Owns Jagex Now!
As we chronicled last summer, RuneScape studio Jagex’s ownership became a bizarre mystery in 2019 and 2020. It was sold to a Chinese mining company in 2016, then to a new holding company in 2019, which Jagex initially denied but then later confirmed, but then a creditor of the original owner contested the sale and waded in with a lawsuit trying to stop the sale. It was, as MOP’s own Lawful Neutral argued, a convoluted mess.
Maybe today’s announcement will set things aright, as Jagex revealed that it’s been acquired by investment firm The Carlyle Group. “Carlyle will leverage its global network, expertise and resources to support Jagex as it continues to drive growth by evolving the core RuneScape franchise through investment in R&D and increased content release rates, as well as launching new titles to diversify its portfolio and engage with an even wider community of players.” Yeah, one of those.
Worth noting is that Jagex actually counted 1.2M subscribers last year on top of “further millions” of F2P players – spectacular numbers for an MMO right now. It’s still promising mobile launches as well as in-progress online games, the first of which is slated for publishing this year. And in other RuneScape news, the game’s 20th anniversary celebrations continue this week with the new Foreshadowing miniquest and skilling XP bonuses.
