Jagex Brought In Over $160 Million, Hit Records In Membership In 2020

RuneScape has been making some serious cash over the past few years, which should come as no surprise to anyone. Nearly every game developer has enjoyed positive revenue trends during pandemic times, and for Jagex that translated into £120 million in revenue ($163 million USD) in 2020.

Yes, it's 2020, not 2021, that's the topic of a press release in 2022 -- and no, we can't figure out the reason for the long lead time either. The increased revenue figure was attributed to, in part, RuneScape's Archaeology update and launch on Steam, which occurred in March and October of 2020, respectively. That pushed membership up to 1.2 million, a new high, and a high of 170,000 concurrent players in Old School RuneScape.

Also in 2020: Jagex added over 100 new employees, transitioned to remote work, and donated £445,778 (about $605,000 USD) to various mental health charities during the year.

Just in case you, like us, were wondering if this was accidentally mislabeled and published on January 6, 2021 instead of January 6, 2022, Jagex CEO Phil Mansell referenced Jagex's buyout by the Carlyle Group that occurred on January 25, 2021 -- though our sources have let us know that that situation is still not yet fully resolved. Regardless of who winds up controlling Jagex, they're getting a company that has proven it can bring in the cash. Hopefully, we'll find out just how much cash before another year has passed.