Feature: Jagex Finds A Hero

Those that think of Jagex probably think of RuneScape, a browser-based MMORPG. The company was on the leading edge of free-to-play in the Western world, though now they’re looking in a new direction. Herotopia is not only something that focuses on super-heroes, but it’s specifically marketing to children. We talked to Wendy Rosenthal, Chief Brand Officer for Jagex, about the challenges and opportunities of Herotopia.

Anything you’d like to start out with saying about Herotopia?

First of all, we are very excited about Herotopia; it’s a departure for us for the type of game that we publish. For us, it’s about building the company into having a varied portfolio and wide range of players. As an IP, it’s fantastic. It really stands out and I think that the kids we’ve [shown it to] have really picked up on how strong the IP is. As a marketer, I get to think of all the fun ways that we can get the brand out to the kids.

What will Herotopia bring to super-hero MMOs that isn’t available right now?

I think that the developers were trying to put the kids in the game as a super hero. You don’t see a lot of super hero games that aren’t established brands, and you usually play as an existing super hero rather than being your own a super hero. [Kids] want to be a super hero and impact things and I think the IP represents that. We’ll see what kids can do with the customization and work with the attitude that it represents. You can do anything and fight for good and it sends the right message to kids and empowers them.

Why did you see a particular opportunity targeting kids with Herotopia?

I want to defer to the developers, because the genesis of that was in their mind, which was very focused on the younger market. [For fantasy games] I think that the kids market at that level is very crowded and its hard to engage kids in that way, because there’s a lot thrown at them. Having the super hero theme helps differentiate us and engage them. That’s what it’s about, capturing their imagination. I don’t like all the talk about kids games being educational; it has to be fun first! You can go around the world visiting locations in the game and that’s educational. And the super hero motif has gained a lot of steam in that age group but it goes back to empowerment. You see No Ordinary Family and you see things similar to that, and kids know a tough world right now . . . I think kids emotionally want to do that, be a hero and get involved with the world.

And there’s about half a dozen big comic movies coming out this year.

I think that the reason why super heroes are strong as a genre is because we’re in a world of chaos and adults and kids want to connect to heroes. People want to do things about bad stuff and it’s true about kids as well.

How important was it to make sure that Herotopia was a “parents approved” sort of game?

I think its very important, especially for the age group we’re targeting; the parental supervision is very important, they make sure the game is a good use of kids times. I think that’s important because parents are gatekeepers and quality content is what’s important to them. There’s fun, but there’s also educational aspects so that parents don’t think kids are being non-productive. That message comes from the developer; we care about our players in games we’ve made in the past and this is no different.

Was it seen as important to keep the price for fees low to encourage younger people to spend?

Yeah, and pricing is always a difficult challenge, there’s always a balance of how do you incentive players and making sure that parents don’t feel like you’re taking advantages of them. It’s a challenge with all of our games and I think it’s an evolution as well. You have to put yourself up against your competitors and what they’re pricing and it’s balancing these things. We want kids to have access to these games and to make parents feel comfortable and that time spent by their kids is high quality.

Jagex was on the leading edge of free-to-play in the West. Now it’s really expanded in the past few years.

It’s an interesting evolution with our titles on how we’re making games. People are coming to the freemium model and its great that we got it right. I come back to the idea of balance and how much you want to charge and how to monetize players. You don’t want to interrupt it and mess with it in away that makes them not want to play your game. In a kids market, that’s tough because the kids are not directly paying themselves; they play the game but the parents make the money decisions. There has to be a value that there’s enough to want to pay and that parent has to see the fun. It’s a complete evolution and games companies are hitting and missing all the time.

Cheap offerings online have also made things tougher on the traditional game industry right now as well; it’s hard to fight against free.

There’s the evolution of where the game industry is, like with Facebook and Zynga and the growth of the casual games is pushing the traditional game industry to take a hard look of where they’re going. They have expanded the market and pulled in a lot of potential players, so people are become more engaged [in different ways]. For core games, if you’re going to spend $60 on a game, they have alternatives now and it’s almost democratizing the game industry in a way. We’ll take that advantage for us with Herotopia because we’ve always been about listening to our fans! We have content updates every other week, but we have to keep our eyes open because nothing stands still online.

Graphics matter, especially for core gamers, but it’s not like RuneScape succeeded because of its hi-fidelity graphics . . .

RuneScape‘s graphics aren’t 21^st century graphics, and that’s not as important to some people. We did Runefest [a convention for RuneScape], and I got to meet our players and a lot of them were older and women and took us aback a bit. Games now span generations and gaming is global. What’s important to people is changing; I think that’s why Jagex is in a good position. A good plus for us, besides thinking it’s a great game, is that when [gamers] get older, they can move on to our other games and keep it accessible from a price point and gameplay perspective.

Maybe you remember this about a decade or so ago, the RIAA chief came out an berated the “internet of thieves” or something to that effect. I was reminded of that when Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata railed against social and mobile games . . .

12 years ago I worked for Sony and I remember some Sony Music execs going “It’ll never change, it’ll never change . . .” If people aren’t smart in the gaming industry the same thing will happen.

What ways will you be looking to get the word out about the game?

I think that we want to attack it from a position of engaging with parents. I’m thinking getting the game into kids hands is the most important thing, and it’s a conflict between styles of promotion. You can spend a gazillion dollars and get onto every TV in the world, but it’s really about engaging parents and showing them what the game is. It has to be fun, engaging and smart and there are some unique things that we’ll meet gamers face-to-face. We’re starting to step up our promotions . . . I think we want to eventually look to some retail partners, because we see ways for kids to get out there in a fun way, we want to get kids where they are anyway [in order to] help them see the IP with its vibrant colors and characters. I think that’s really important.

We are going to be doing a promotional campaign with an activation code where they’ll get a month for free via a quest and that’s a big step towards getting kids engaged. I think a large part of that is content development and great focus. You’ll get to see things like Eiffel Tower and that’s part of the reason why we love it.

How will experience with your older titles inform the ways you’ll promote Herotopia?

I think that the one thing I feel confident about [for Jagex] is managing the community; it’s taught us how to communicate with our players. RuneScape has teenagers and tweens and we know how to protect them; we have a proactive management. I think having that knowledge helps us talk to them and keep them happy. This is going to elevate us, but with RuneScape we have weekly events in the game that keeps players engaged in between updates. We’ve learned so much from what player developer communities want and that will make a big difference for how it will grow. We’ve also learned when is the right time to listen and what sort of content to make. It’s like a living breathing world and we have employees on call 24 hours; it’s important to know how you grow the game and how you keep people engaged. It’s been 10 years for RuneScape and that’s amazing to be successful for that long and it’s because we continue to create great content. We’re talking about having many, many players and that will serve us well in Herotopia and keep people interested. When that 7 year old is playing and their little brother sees them they’re going to be excited that in a few years they’re going to be playing themselves.

What can people expect out of future titles like Transformers Online and Stellar Dawn?

We’re very excited about our relationship with Hasbro. You’ll hear more in the next couple weeks! I can promise an announcement then. What I think it says about Jagex is, we have a great new ownership, we have a strong team of owners and they’re willing to push the company to the next level and I think Transformers Online is a large step for that. Stellar Dawn is into alpha, and I’ll share some things when that’s appropriate. We’ve got some stuff coming up this Summer. We’ve also got a closed beta for 8Realms, the HTML game more engaging to a core gamer audience, and I’m excited about that one because I’m in the target audience. We’ll be announcing the launch of that soon. So a huge amount of announcements and it’s an exciting time. I’ve been with the company for 5 months but already I can’t wait to see what the future has in store!

Wendy, thanks.

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