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Jagex Announces Record Revenues of £120million

Press Release

Highest ever membership for RuneScape games during 2020

Total number of employees grows by more than 10% during pandemic-impacted year

Operating profits increase 10% to £53.8million

Cambridge, UK – Thursday, January 6th 2022, 1pm GMT – Jagex, the leader in developing and publishing deep, community-driven games, has revealed its sixth successive year of growth with revenue increasing to £120million in 2020. The team behind the epic RuneScape franchise, delighting more fans than ever in its two decades of operation, reported its FY2020 success in the face of unprecedented challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Phil Mansell, Jagex CEO, said: “At the start of 2020 no one could have predicted the massive impact the Covid-19 pandemic would have on the world, and to our business. In a year in which we transitioned our entire company to remote working without any major impact on our game services or our amazing community, Jagex adapted and thrived. We thank all of our staff and players for the fantastic results achieved, and we are thrilled that RuneScape was able to provide a continuing safe and familiar place for our community in such a turbulent and unsettling time.”

Jagex responded quickly and decisively in the face of the unexpected coronavirus pandemic in 2020, transitioning its game development, publishing and live operations teams to remote working. This enabled the business and its games to operate without any interruption or reduction in service or player support.

Key milestones reached in 2020 were:

  • Record RuneScape franchise membership of more than 1.2million
  • RuneScape product revenue increases 18% thanks to launch on Steam and significant Archaeology content update
  • Old School RuneScape achieved its highest ever concurrent player number of more than 170,000
  • Jagex donated a record £445,778 for its mental health charity partners, and other initiatives including the global Play Apart Together campaign
  • Jagex welcomed more than 100 new employees, most onboarded during the pandemic as the company transitioned to remote working

Mansell continued: “Together with our new owners The Carlyle Group, who we announced acquired Jagex early in 2021, we’re excited for the future as Jagex continues to adapt its operations in the face of ongoing global uncertainty. We anticipate continued growth and success for the business, delivering on our key strategies of growing our existing games, adding capabilities that boost player engagement, and accelerating our deep, community-driven games portfolio by publishing live service games developed by talented third-party developers through Jagex Partners. We are also investing more into development and investing in improving the quality of player touchpoints across our ecosystem.”

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Press Contact: Jagex Games Studio

About Jagex: A leader in creating deep and engaging live games on PC and mobile, Jagex’s flagship MMORPG, RuneScape, has welcomed almost 300million player accounts to its world and is a $1billion lifetime revenue franchise. Today the RuneScape franchise exists beyond running games in live operations; our titles are living games that connect and inspire millions of players, with content and experiences both inside and outside of inexhaustible game worlds. Both RuneScape and Old School RuneScape, on PC and mobile, offer ever-evolving, highly active worlds and our community-focused development ethos empowers players to have a real say in how each game is shaped. Now we’re expanding and extending our portfolio via Jagex Partners with fresh franchise titles and new IP to bring life to the living games of the future. Jagex employs more than 450 people at its Cambridge headquarters. For more information about Jagex go to www.jagex.com/