RuneScape Has 105 Million User Accounts

[John Funk]

RuneScape Has 105 Million User Accounts

Jagex's free-to-play browser MMOG RuneScape is pretty big. In fact, it's the world's biggest free game, says Guinness World Records, with over 105 million user accounts - dwarfing even mighty WoW almost tenfold.

NCSoft's Aion has four million players in Asia right now? Pfft. WoW has twelve million worldwide? Chump change! These games that many of us hold up as kingpins of the MMOG space are relatively puny compared to the most popular free-to-play games. Take RuneScape, for example - according to Jagex's Mark Gerhard, not only is the game recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's most popular free-to-play game, its numbers aren't anything to sneeze about: 105 million players have signed up for the game over the course of its lifetime.

That's a staggering amount, really. That's three times the amount of people who've bought an Xbox 360. Only slightly less than twice the number of Wiis out there. Of course, not all of those accounts are active - many people make one and then never play after a while - but a good chunk of that 105-million-strong playerbase does come back regularly:

"More than 10 million. It depends if you're taking a day, a week, three months. We did another stat for the Guinness Book of World Records that was total active unique [users] over time, and that was just over 105 million. So 105 million people have touched it," Gerhard told Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/jagex-on-runescape-mechscape-and-funorb-interview].

Jagex is looking to capitalize on RuneScape's success with sci-fi Browser MMOG MechScape - which is still under wraps, but it has "Mech" in the game. That means it must be awesome.

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[L33tsauce_Marty]

While only 20,000 actually kept their accounts over a week.

 

[walls of cetepedes]

While only 20,000 actually kept their accounts over a week.

And half of those are multi-accounts and bots.

 

[Pimppeter2]

I have like an account from 2003 that I used once.

Still, its pretty impressive

 

[Ninja_X]

Runescape is a good game, I play occasionally.

 

[jasoncyrus]

Indeed, most are old accounts no one plays anymore...like mine

 

[GamerLuck]

I think in total i had like 5 accounts after forgetting passwords and names of the others... and just plain getting bored of the thing... That nice big number is a total crock.

 

[Altorin]

just for clarity sake, WoW has 14 million ACTIVE SUBSCRIBERS.

I'm not saying they'd have 105 million, as I'm sure I would have heard about a game selling that many units, but there could easily by 50 million accounts.

 

[Vimbert]

To parrot everyone else, how many of those Runescape accounts are actually active?

I know I played something like five years ago. I hope that one doesn't count toward that inflated number they're tossing around.

 

[Gerazzi]

well I'm sure most people have alternate accounts on the thing, and there's not much more to be said about the current trend in Runescape other than I stopped playing it a long, long time ago.

Also, I don't like Jagex

 

[Amnestic]

How many of those 105 million accounts are active and paying accounts?

Heck, even I have a runescape account. I played it for 10 minutes and got bored, but I'm contributing to that 105 million stat with my 10 minutes of playtime. Forgive me if I'm not uber impressed.

 

[awsome117]

Good for runescape. They at least deserve something right?

 

[ActualOvaltine]

I played once and didn't think it was that cool. Never played again.

 

[Simalacrum]

While only 20,000 actually kept their accounts over a week.

And half of those are multi-accounts and bots.

and about 1% of those who actually play become... *gasp* members...

 

[Disembodied_Dave]

Everyone, at some point, has to have a RuneScape account. It's like a nerd rite of passage.

 

[Fudgo]

I once made the Pool's Closed guy in the game, just for a laugh. Nice to know that I actually contributed to the number with that.

 

[RavingPenguin]

Eh.. I have an account. I got about a year ago now, I got bored in the first 10 minutes, put it down, and havent touched it since. If they had 105 million active accounts, then I might be inclined to be impressed.

 

[letsnoobtehpwns]

I made at least 6 accounts. I only played on one of them for more then a week. I quit the game before it went to hell. I remember hearing about how Jagex took out the wilderness and I was laughing at my friends who still played it. Well, now I have an Xbox and I play GOOD games.

 

[scotth266]

Not very impressed here either: I made an account for about a month or two, but got bored when it became apparent that the only way to progress further was to start forking over some money.

 

[Dioxide20]

How many of those are original people? I kept forgetting passwords and made about 20.