Lately, Jagex has taken a bigger shift into trying to control us... Why would good old Jagex do such a thing? Why are they trying to Gain Influence, and Control over fansites and players alike within the runescape community?
One answer: Money. They're already in the process of controlling small and large fansites alike and their communities. Why does it matter for them? Fansites can threaten profits, bigtime. A considerable part of runescape players reach out for runescape help, a place to talk, read and socialize with like-minded people. There is a big profitable market for that. If these fansites propose, within their advertisements or messages, a service or product that could compete with jagex's paid membership subscription, then Jagex would suffer a loss in profits... as if 100 million$ a year would not be enough for them.
Such competing products/services that jagex doesn't want to see include in-game gold or accounts, or competing online games(which they have been and are promoting themselves). Jagex wants none of these. Other MMO's (massively multiplayer online games) neither want gold selling adverts (of course!), but they at least do propose a solution to fansite writers/publishers; they have referral programs which lets fansite owners and game developers alike split profits when a surfer buys a game membership when first referred through a fansite. This not only reduces the black market of a set game, but also helps spike up sales of paid gaming time. An affiliate program is easy to apply, and it would barely take any time at all to implement. Jagex has none of this. They don't have any affiliate program for their memberships (which could bennefit them with more membership sales) that fansites could promote in advertisements. I don't get their logic. Perhaps they want to keep the bullion for themselves.
So Jagex has nothing to offer to website publishers. Not only don't they have nothing to offer, but they have something to say too; they don't want anyone to display advertisements that sell virtual goods, or even other online games. Jagex has already broken these two rules by the way; they have had and still do have advertisements for other games, + the fact that they are currently advertising the sale of in-game virtual goods of their so-called ''war of legends'' game, if you can call that a game that is.
P.S - If you have no idea what <<war of legends>> is - and I don't blame you; It's a copy/paste of the ''EVONY''online game. For reference, Evony is like age of empires but the game lasts longer, and you can just buy your way through the game with in-game money sold by the game developper (it's legal).
Q: So how can Jagex better slash fansites, gold sellers and competing online games to increase their revenues?
A: Put in place the ''Fansite
Just to get a fansite up and running, it takes an enormous amount of work and effort.When you put in more than 50 hours of work a week into it for a long period of time, you deserve more than just ''recognition''. By not allowing the use of gaming advertisements on runscape fansites, Jagex fails to see fansites as businesses on their own. If on your fansite, you have some in-game images of runescape (which are copyrighted), and Jagex doesn't like one thing or another on your site (be it content or advertisements), they can potentially sue you for whatever reason they want. So either remove ingame images on your site, or obey their commands at all times... It is clear that the executives behind Jagex want to be the only ones to profit from the game, when in fact the game would have never even reached this level of popularity without the helpsites behind it.
Take a look at the chart on this page. What their ''rewards'', if you can even call them that - are trying to do is to lure you to help their players and paying members for free!, without giving you any cut for your efforts, and then one day *Hope* to be lucky enough to enter their gaming studio, which personally, I don't give a s**t about. Would YOU, yes you! put in hundreds and thousands of hours of work into something, helping out a multi-million dollar business (jagex), and not getting anything in return? -Exactly.
Before launching the 'fansite support scam', Jagex Hired a Mod (forgot his name though), who manages a team of employees that work fulltime with communicating, searching and at last, controlling fansites.
For myself, I'm keeping this blog free of any copyrighted runescape images and I'll just say whatever I want HOW I want and when I want. And if Jagex, you aren't happy about it then go * yourself. And if you've got a lawsuit in the works then bring it on!
To be continued...
