Jagex and mobile realm

[Dr Brad]

23 February 2011 16:30
Jagex attempts to conquer mobile realm

Jagex, the Cambridge company behind the world's most popular ‘massively multiplayer online game' (MMO), Runescape, has announced plans to launch its first game fully based on HTML, allowing it to appear on any internet-enabled mobile device irrespective of browser or operating system.

8 Realms, which challenges players to build world dominant empires from villages as they work through "eight ages of history", marks a new direction for Jagex which has until now built its games using either Java or Flash platforms.

The game is strongly targeting the mobile devices market, such as tablets and smartphones and by basing the game on HTML, the markup language used to build web pages, Jagex will eliminate the need for Java and Flash plug-ins, the latter of which is unavailable on Apple iPhones and iPads.

"“With 8 Realms we saw a massive opportunity to push the technological boundaries of HTML games,” said Jagex CEO, Mark Gerhard. "Jagex has traditionally been an innovator in browser gaming and we saw this as our chance to bring a fresh slant to the social space and the empire-building genre."

Jagex is planning a closed beta launch for 5 May 2011. Gamers eager to participate in the beta phase need to 'like' the 8 Realms Facebook page. (http://www.facebook.com/8Realms)

Earlier this month, Jagex recieved new investment from Insight Venture Partners, Spectrum Equity Investors and The Raine Group to accelerate growth of its development and publishing capabilities.

Source: http://www.cabume.co.uk/software/jagex- ... realm.html

[Dr Brad]

If Jagex creates a new HTML-based gaming platform (devoid of Java), does this mean they should change their corporate name to Hygex?

[Tamal]

This will be big news… the next generation of HTML[5] games is just starting to take off. No wonder the VCs are interested.

[B F O A]

Interesting.

When i used to play Funorb (before it basically went out of business and actually looked promising), jagex released a few mobile games that were all very successful. Bouncedown was the #1 downloaded for awhile. Undercroft was a really fun mini-RPG style game. But it was super repetitive.

I think they could be successful in this area.

[Kaye]

i received the beta invite for this game but i failed to sign up in time,
i had until May 5th but, i just read the email like 2 minutes ago (fail :evil: )
did anyone else get a beta invite? i was wondering if the game seemed like it could be fun
since i didn't specifically apply for the beta invite for 8Realms, i was assuming they just took my name from the Stellar Dawn list
and i know some of you signed up for that
edit: i never 'liked' their fb page; and added a screenie

[Tamal]

I've been playing it a bit. It is very similar to War of Legends and isn't really my cup of tea.

[Kaye]

I've been playing it a bit. It is very similar to War of Legends and isn't really my cup of tea.

ohh it's one of THOSE games
not really my cup of tea either