Tag: Investors

Jagex Plays Pivotal Role In New Publicly Listed Games Company


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Back in July, I reported that Jagex had been acquired by Chinese investors, and that the deal would mean the formation of a new company. Today, Jagex has finally unveiled that the acquisition is moving forward and that the new publicly listed company will be called Zhongji Holding. Rod Cousens, who took over as CEO after the departure of Mark Gerhard, will continue his role as CEO, Chairman, and member of the Board of Directors for the foreseeable future.

“Zhongji Holding has great ambition in the gaming space and Jagex is at the forefront of its charge. China is the biggest gaming market in the world and Zhongji Holding’s motivation in the sector will prove a compelling proposition for other gaming businesses seeking access to the region. While an integral part of Zhongji Holding’s plans, Jagex’s operations remain unchanged and its business as usual for our games, players and our employees.”

Also revealed in this statement is that Jagex’s 2015 revenues hit an all time high of $88.4 million with $36.1 million in profits.

(Source: Jagex Press Release)

Jagex Acquired By Chinese Investors


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Jagex, the Cambridge-headquartered creator of RuneScape and Chronicle: RuneScape Legends finally announced their acquisition by Chinese investors, with a new Board of Directors being constituted immediately upon their purchase. The acquisition was first hinted at months ago after news broke that the developer was considering offers from Chinese iron mining company Shandong Hongda.

CEO Rod Cousens praised the acquisition for its offer of “visibility in China, which is now the biggest gaming market in the world.”

“Jagex will continue to be operated by the existing management team, which has overseen an impressive trading performance in recent times and has driven its iconic franchise, RuneScape to continued to growth. It will be business as usual for the Company, its players, and its employees post-acquisition.”

The news of the acquisition comes on the heels of what Jagex refers to as “best ever performance.” In addition to RuneScape and its Old School spinoff, Jagex is currently working on card game Chronicle: RuneScape Legends and an idle game based on the same series.

(Source: Jagex press release)

Not Massive: Cliff Bleszinski Joins Fig


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Cliff Bleszinski, developer known for Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, is the latest big name to join crowdfunding platform Fig. Bleszinski joins Tim Schafer and Brian Fargo in heading up the platform that hopes to differentiate itself from the likes of Kickstarter and Indiegogo by offering backers the chance to actually invest in projects and receive money back if the game proves to be a success.

Despite its small library, Fig has seen the successful funding of numerous titles including Schafer’s own Psychonauts 2, Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob game, and Outer Wild. The platform was also host to the well-publicized failure of Rock Band to secure a PC port, pulling in just $792 thousand out of the $1.5 million it had asked for.

Fig hopes that its hands-on curation will create an environment that is welcoming to backers around the $20 mark who simply want a fun game all the way up to four-figure investors who want to see a return on their money. Fig’s current focus is on Consortium: The Tower, currently exceeding its funding goal.

(Source: Forbes)

NCSoft Ignored Potential Buyers, Says Report


One of the luxuries of being a reporter is that I can always fall back on the ability to say “well it is a press release, so we have to give the benefit of the doubt.” The same way in which we automatically trust what comes out of a developer’s financial statements on the grounds that just because ENRON lied, doesn’t make all companies suspicious. But with NCSoft, even a simple notice on the Main page is suspect, thanks to the precedent set just a couple years back with the forging of Richard Garriot’s resignation. Sorry, fool me once shame on you.

So when NCSoft published the notice that all options had been exhausted when selling City of Heroes, the game’s fans were understandably suspicious. In a report over at Addicting Info, it appears that NCSoft may have been toying with what constitutes “all options.”

Within short order, two different investment groups (speaking while protected by anonymity) claimed that NCSoft had refused to even discuss a sale, and ignored any and all offers. A company which engages in this kind of behavior is not a good steward of its shareholders’ investment.

Only Addicting Info knows who these developers are, but if NCSoft did ignore even the idea of a sale, this news is just fuel on the growing fire that is NCSoft’s community relations following the surprise closure announcement. For now, however, the SaveCOH movement is not giving up hope.

(Source: Addicting Info)

Jagex: Profits And Investors, Not Doing A Crap Job


RuneScape’s roots go back ten years, to 2001 where the game was a simple at home project by Andrew Gower. With the Gowers now mostly absent (they resigned from the Board of Directors in December 2010), the torch has been passed to Mark Gerhard to keep the developer moving in its upward trend. Granted, Jagex has multiple MMOs in production (Stellar Dawn and Transformers Online, to name just the two slated for release this year), so the rise in revenue but dip in profits reported for 2010-2011 was to be expected at some extent.

But fret not, investors and gamers. To the former, Jagex isn’t some cheap floozy willing to take just anyone’s money. In an interview with Games Industry, Mark Gerhard wants to set the record straight that Jagex dates very, very selectively.

Nothing has changed as far as the company goes. It’s the same management team, we’ve obviously been at the helm for quite some time and to the best of our knowledge and expectation it will continue to be so. Sure we therefore have some American shareholders, but the management and the culture and the ethos and everything else is the same people, in the same hands, and staunchly British.

Gerhard attributes the dip in profits to Jagex investing more in the company instead of paying dividends, a move which apparently began around the time Insight Ventures attained 55% ownership in Jagex (end of 2010). He also paints a picture that, regardless of the shift in majority ownership, nothing has changed at Jagex since Insight Ventures took the majority vote.

Jagex has quite an interesting year ahead of it, what with continued investment in RuneScape, the recent launch of their HTML-based game 8Realms, and the upcoming launches of Transformers Online and Stellar Dawn.

(Source: Gamesindustry.biz) You’ll need to be registered to view the article.