It’s always a bad feeling when a popular game that you love and have played for years nears the end of its life. All games meet the end of their shelf life as newer games provide new experiences for later generations of gaming. Old School RuneScape – one of the earliest MMO games – seems to be crawling ever closer to being considered “dead” in the gaming community.
At least, its relevance is being questioned by popular figureheads in the MMO society. But is Old School RuneScape doing well enough to remain popular in today’s generation of gaming, or is it time for the devs over at Jagex to finally hang it up and let a legend keep its mark in MMO history? There are arguments for both sides of this discussion, so follow along to see what we’ve found to answer the question: Is Old School RuneScape Dying?
There are several ways to determine if a game is dying or not, and we will explore those in this discussion. Specifically, we’re going to look at things like the community support, player base, developer updates, and content creator participation that all combine to help keep a game relevant. All of this will help us figure out the clues in favor of and against Old School RuneScape’s eventual end.
What is Old School RuneScape Player Count?
The best way to tell if a game is dying or not is to look at its player base. It doesn’t matter how bad or unsupported a game is. If gamers are playing it and keeping it alive, the community will find a way to keep supporting the game even without the developers.
In MMO Populations, we will find a five-year analysis of the player base. According to the report, Old School RuneScape has gradually increased since 2015, increasing from 500,000 players to nearly 2 million. Only recently have we seen a dip back to about 1 million, but it hasn’t dropped down to what it was in a very long time.
The official Old School RuneScape website refreshes total active players. At the time of creating this article, over 100,000 people were playing. If we cross-examine that data with the MMO Population’s listing of daily active players, we can see that nearly 1.3 million people play the game every day. We assume they are referring to players who simply sign in and out on the same day.
There are new games that have launched in the past year that aren’t running those numbers. Now, they aren’t super good numbers, and many developers would start finding ways to increase the player base in this current generation of gaming. However, for a game that has been out for almost two decades, it’s safe to say these facts support the ongoing life of Old School Runescape.
Are the developers still supporting Old School RuneScape?
Another way to determine if Old School RuneScape is dying is to look at the amount of effort Jagex is putting into the game. Even though they have other more recent projects, many people question whether they still support the servers and the game itself with updates and fixes.
Upon visiting the official Old School RuneScape site, you’ll notice that their most recent game update article is very recent. As of the creation of this article, the most recent website update was one day ago, and it refers to the Leagues III Shattered Relics launch that has been promoted to the community for a long time.
On January 19, 2022, Jagex announced the long-awaited league experience finally arrived. The development will be completed in March of this year, but its trailer is already on the website. You’ll need an active account to start your league adventure. There will be 22 worlds available to explore.
Aside from that, many other game updates came out just this year regarding fixes, updates, community events, and much more. On the surface, the developers are doing everything they can to keep the player base happy with new content every day. We can’t say for sure how difficult it must be to continue supporting this game when generations of video games have come and gone and introduced much fresher games, but it seems Jagex is holding on strong to keep the loyal OSRS fans happy.
Content Creators for Old School RuneScape
One more significant role in keeping a game alive is creator support. When there are content creators who essentially market your game for free to the gaming community, there will always be interest in your game. Games like Overwatch have seen a drop in creator support concerning recent events.
Whatever the reason, there is an indirect correlation between creator support and player base, whatever the cause. There’s no kind way to say this, so forgive us if feathers are rustled: people tend to flock in the direction of authority figures and personalities on social media. That means that having creators support your product is a surefire way to sustain life, especially in the gaming world.
With that logic, we can look at some of the top content creators for Old School RuneScape and analyze their channels. Of course, there are individual efforts to consider, but it’s still good to look at the outside of that. Starting with arguably the top 3 OSRS creators, we can see that they are still getting a fair amount of views every day.
Rargh, SirPugger, and KempQ all find a way to create new content for a 15-year-old game. However, they all collectively haven’t uploaded new videos to their channels in about two weeks. Also, the most recent video before that was another two weeks ago. While they all have accumulated well over 500,000 views in the past month, that isn’t a lot considering other gaming channels hit those numbers every upload on their own.
Objectively, the creator support isn’t great for Old School RuneScape. That doesn’t directly support the game is dying. However, it’s a prominent figure to consider when answering that question. There will never be concrete evidence for a game failing until that day comes.
Just play Old School RuneScape
On a much more positive note, there are still people playing Old School RuneScape, and the developers are still supporting it. They also have to be getting support from the community since they are making an effort to optimize the player experience.
If you are curious about whether Old School RuneScape is dying, don’t feel wrong about the opinions you find. The game is still here and available to enjoy, so you should do whatever you can to make the most out of what is still here.
That being said, you can find value in Old School RuneScape outside of the game by looking at the time you commit. You’re going to be putting in many hours, so why not get paid for that time? You can buy, sell and trade in-game currency OSRS Gold and items just like you would with NFTs and crypto by visiting Eldorado.gg.
They service tones of MMOs, shooters, and other multiplayer games where gamers can earn and trade real-life money via in-game rewards. Stop by Eldorado.gg today to see if the games you play are being serviced.
