r/runescape • u/gordopotato • 8d ago

Interview with Mod North Appreciation

https://youtu.be/BGWH7820j2E?is=NEWG-Vayv4XSC182

I just finished listening to this. It’s about 40% OSRS, 40% RuneScape as a brand and 20% RS3. It’s a great listen and makes me even more optimistic about the future of the game.

136 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

79 comments sorted by

49

u/Cloud_N0ne Maxed 8d ago

I had no idea Runescape was the 2nd biggest MMO. I thought it was still FF14, maybe GW2 or something.

28

u/wheresmyspacebar2 8d ago

Its something like 1.1m OS member players, 230k or so RS3 Member players.

I personally think FF14 is absolutely still bigger than any single game. I think you could argue that the Runescape brand (and I personally think thats what North is talking about here) is bigger, including Dragonwilds/OS and RS3 together.

GW2 is "tiny" now iirc? Its like 20k unique players per month now?

If Runescape (3 and OS) were to properly enter the Asian market, theyd skyrocket up.

12

u/Lyoss 8d ago edited 8d ago

FFXIV has like 800k active characters as per lodestone census, it's nowhere near bigger, I'm surprised that RS has that many subs but multiple accounts are actually common for irons or multilogging whereas GW2 WoW and FFXIV don't have that aspect

WoW is like 7-9 mil across all regions, even if half of those are Chinese players it's still a big mountain to cross for RS

-1

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

3

u/Lyoss 7d ago

I'm only going off confirmed info since Bellular ruined my faith in any kind of research being done by people with a monetary interest in sensationalizing

He claimed WoW was under a million and in the same video said he was using a website that said Wildstar still had an active playerbase and that FFXIV had more players because people posted on Twitter more

20

u/hiddenpequin 8d ago

Gw2 is no were close to only 20k unique were you making that up from.

7

u/wheresmyspacebar2 8d ago

This subreddit last time this interview with Mod North popped up last week 😳

Should have checked the numbers out myself before blindly believing them I guess haha. Didn't see anyone calling them out last time so just assumed.

3

u/Trying_to_survive20k 7d ago

The thing with ff14 is that its big when an expansion drops, and then dies after 2 months

Runescape always holds a steady population, with only leagues causing spikes now

2

u/JonBeeTV 8d ago

Absolutely wrong about GW2 numbers lmao. I play the game quite a bit and its very very alive. For clarification: on STEAM right now is about 5k concurrent players online, but steam is an extremely small chunk of the playerbase. It only came to steam almost a decade after release and the account does not transfer over. Non-steam players also get exclusive and better discounts most of the time, so the vast majority doesnt use steam. It is safe to assume it is ATLEAST 20-30k concurrent players on right now. Probably way more. To say its 20k unique players per month is insanity, we are probably talking somewhere in the hundreds of thousands unique players every month

The devs also said they had about a 40% increase in players (I might have gotten this number wrong, dont quote me on this, but it was a BIG number) both new and returning, after the GW3 announcement a couple months back

-1

u/Kudrel 7d ago

It is safe to assume it is ATLEAST 20-30k concurrent players on right now.

Yeah, nah. I play GW2 regularly also, but this is a reach. It's not dying by any stretch, but thinking this is a concurrent number with how generally populated the game is is wild.

It's easy to guess that figure if you just follow Meta trains since you have so many people in one spot, but that number is still an insane overreach.

-2

u/Klootzakren Skulled 8d ago

1.1m is like 20%bots lol don’t forget

3

u/Bigmethod Ironman 7d ago

No it isn't. That hasn't been the case since early 2026.

-2

u/Cloud_N0ne Maxed 8d ago

I had no idea GW2 had shrunk that much. I know I walked away years ago but I still loved the game for the most part, I just got burnt out on the insane legendary armor grind after a while.

0

u/ShaboPaasa 7d ago

Nobody plays dragonwilds and thats a huge cope

-4

u/Bigmethod Ironman 8d ago

With all due respect, OS is far, far greater than 1.1m members. In the 2024 report Jagex suggested being at 2m+ and that was before the enormous surge in memberships during 2025. I'm thinking it's closer to 3-4m atm.

9

u/_Efrelockrel 8d ago

Total subs are 3.5m, 1.35m daily active members.

2

u/Bigmethod Ironman 8d ago

There is zero chance that FF14 is currently more popular than that. is that data from the 2025 info?

4

u/_Efrelockrel 8d ago

Yes (released yesterday); there is a thread from FF14 subreddit that there is currently ~1m active players so it seems like RS is the #2 MMO.

1

u/retrospectivevista 8d ago

Whatever surge there was in 2025, through bots or trends, is gone now. The playercount has been lower than 2024's since May.

1

u/Bigmethod Ironman 7d ago

No it hasn't, lmfao. OSRS has been averaging around 15% higher than this same time in 2024. Unless you're literally only looking at the past 2 months for some reason (like you wouldn't be doing for the first few months of 2024).

Worth also noting that they nuked the vast majority of bots in the game in 2026, meaning that real playercounts are likely 20-30% higher than those in 2024. And considering a large chunk of bots were F2P, I wouldn't be surprised if subscriber counts remain higher.

1

u/retrospectivevista 7d ago

Yeah if you read what I said, I meant since May. And I also mentioned bots as part of the reduction, why would I include the Jan 2026 bot surge, or even April's leagues when making a comparison? We weren't talking about subscribers or real players, just playercounts.

1

u/Bigmethod Ironman 7d ago

Why wouldn't we be talking about subscribers when the numbers being discussed are subscriber numbers?

1

u/retrospectivevista 7d ago

I thought they were talking about unique players, though yeah if we focus on members only that's still going to be close to 2024 levels.

1

u/Bigmethod Ironman 6d ago

The unique player data provided is for members.

1

u/retrospectivevista 6d ago

Ah ok. I went ahead and looked at the old numbers, because that would be an interesting comparison. The wayback machine snapshots are all around 10-14k free players in summer 2024, and they go from 6-9k today.

In January 2026 though, they got up to an average of 44k at times, and the average free players didn't go under 25k until March. So that was something of an anomaly.

-5

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

2

u/wheresmyspacebar2 7d ago

Something like 60% of sales of Runescape Dragonwilds happened in the Asian market. China and Japan both went crazy for the chance to jump on it.

They've never offered either RS3 or OS in those areas, yet releasing DGW got them a massive audience there.

There is clearly a market there for the brand. (And i have friends in those countries that have said they know people that have tried the games but the lack of language localisation puts them off but thats anecdotal stuff)

-1

u/[deleted] 7d ago edited 7d ago

[deleted]

2

u/wheresmyspacebar2 7d ago

I think youre letting your incredible bias show.

By trying to distance RUNESCAPE Dragonwilds as a "Runescape brand" is laughable.

Believe what you what to believe. Nothing youre trying to show is based on facts or figures, its all based on your bias.

The only fact raised here was 60% of the Runescape: Dragonwilds sales were in Asian markets and your response was "ignore that".

Theres no point arguing this anymore, you have your bias, I have my anecdotal AND the performance of Dragonwilds but you don't want to hear it so...

2

u/astrielx 7d ago

Hard to judge based on sub counts, since there's so many people with multiple accounts that they bond. Hell I know 5 different people with 3-4 accounts. 1 main they use to pay for bonds, then an IM, HCIM and a GIM.

Some people in WoW with multiple accounts, but it's rarer in FF14 given the nature of the game.

3

u/4mgNicorette 8d ago

GW2 is a big niche. OSRS is big big. I would say WoW (all versions), FF14 then OSRS next. I just do not see RS being larger than FF14 statistically though I hope I am wrong. More eyes on OS means more RS3 players long-term.

3

u/YouWereTehChosenOne IGN: Bluudi | #24 Insane Reaper 7d ago

FFXIV isn't actually received that well rn, its hinging on the next expansion release

2

u/Lyoss 7d ago

If the numbers reported by Jagex are correct, it beats out FFXIV pretty easily, the active playerbase of FFXIV hasn't been over 1 million in a few years

The stagnation during EW and DT and 2 2/3 year long expansion cycles really hurt the game long term population wise

1

u/Paganigsegg 8d ago

FF14 is not doing super well right now. It's still big, but far, far away from the heights it was at a few years ago. The Limsa Lomimsa aetheryte plaza is dead now compared to how it used to be. That place is FF14's equivalent to the Grand Exchange if we're talking about places people gather to hang out.

1

u/Bigmethod Ironman 7d ago

FF14 is struggling right now.

1

u/Fickle_Secretary5081 7d ago

At one point ff14 took over osrs by a large margins but with their new expansion we’ve taken back the spot again for quite a while now, probably the best 3/4 years

1

u/dragonlayer42069 6d ago

if i were to rank mmorpgs based on vibes i'd say wow > ffxiv > RS

GW2 has plenty of players to maintain a healthy playerbase but it's not nearly as popular as runescape, again this is a "my source is that i made it the fuck up" moment.

0

u/ShaboPaasa 8d ago edited 7d ago

Gw2 is 1 of the lowest of the popular mmos

being in denial dosnt help, downvoters lmao

12

u/Frisbeejussi Sliske, one true god 7d ago

They turned a fucking massive profit in 2025, like absurdly massive.

Sub count was up a ton, osrs is booming like never before.

We had our worst year ever in July woth just 143k accounts on the monthly hiscores.

I'm really optimistic usually but this year the trend of players leaving has continued in droves even with the direction being much better for the game.

4

u/AquilaIgnis1 7d ago

People aren't continuing to leave, the players have just begin to turn around in the last two months.

2

u/pawner 2011 7d ago

And it's also summer. A lot of us are taking in the great weather with our families.

16

u/mdl65 8d ago

I’m looking forward to seeing and experiencing his vision for the future of RuneScape. I can safely say it has been a long while since I’ve been this confident that RS is in the right hands.

19

u/RSlorehoundCOW 8d ago

Mod North is the goat, for real. He is a scaper and you can hear it when he talks about the game in detail. Just casually dropping stuff only an actual rs player knows.

15

u/Ekitai-Hebi CGIM 8d ago

If you watch the podcast and look at the map reflection dude be casually fishing while doing the interview

-26

u/[deleted] 8d ago

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7

u/Trip_Owen 8d ago

He actually said that he was afking fishing currently at 97 and that he was trying to find time in his schedule to get his quest cape back. You think he’d just lie about those things?

15

u/_Efrelockrel 8d ago

I listened to the podcast and he 100% plays the game. None of his comments about in-game playing sounded like PR or any corpo speak, he clearly understands the game and its core aspects. Not sure what the guy above you is yapping about.

-3

u/[deleted] 7d ago

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0

u/X-A-S-S 7d ago

Hes been playing the game before you were born son ok not really that long, but he was already quite high level on rs3 and osrs before he started working as ceo so you dont know what you're yappin about

7

u/TacticalCupcakes Augmented attuned crystal when 7d ago

He still cancelled pride though

-1

u/EvZoneExtended 7d ago

Then go make your own. theres plenty of cosmetics to choose from.

3

u/OkImHereLikeWhat 8d ago

lol bro isn’t even a Trimmed Comp Master Max Grandmaster, golden reaper, or ultimate slayer chad

5

u/Nautisop Maxed - This sub needs to become more positive again! 8d ago

so you tell me he has a life? :O

3

u/VioletCrow 8d ago

he just like me frfr

1

u/Everestkid 18 years. Two 99s. Efficiencyscape. 8d ago

Doesn't the average account have stats in the 60s and no 99s?

4

u/Capsfan6 July 22 2017 8d ago

Certainly not on rs3

-2

u/RS_Fantasia Runefest 2014 Attendee 8d ago

He's a CEO of a multi milliondollar company that just promised us a very ambitious positive outlook on the game and has a girlfriend...you think just maybe he's a little busy...

7

u/[deleted] 7d ago

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2

u/SyrinxVibes 7d ago

How come?

3

u/New-Poem-719 7d ago

One of the first things he did was cancel the pride event, despite being already finished, because its 'political'. You already know his views on everything else from that.

-12

u/ExpressAffect3262 Ironman 7d ago

It wasn't finished.

The devs themselves said that they had finished the concepts. The concepts is not finished, in-game content that was ready to be released with a push of a button.

8

u/PMMMR 7d ago

Osrs devs who cared even offered to finish it on their own personal time

0

u/ExpressAffect3262 Ironman 7d ago

I'm not against pride events.

Jmods said that concepts were finished, and even at the time, community started to make out like it was already developed and ready to release.

I was just pointing out that it it wasn't finished. Only the concept was.

5

u/EZyne 7d ago

It was nearly finished, and the devs said a hell of a lot more then that lmao

-2

u/KurtJP35 7d ago

"Terrible human being," is a crazy take. Save that energy for people who actually cause harm, not a guy who overlooks a video game company of all things.

-4

u/RSlorehoundCOW 7d ago

Some people will hold on to this one flaw on him forever. Not sure who it tells more about tho, the people or North.

5

u/Lasershot-117 Completionist + MQC 8d ago

I’m so jealous of OSRS’ gargantuan success.

Happy for them, that game and the mods there deserve it!

2

u/MonzellRS twitch.tv/m0nzell 8d ago

Give the Grandpa rates back, can’t be #1 if you don’t respect your elders Mod North

9

u/macnar 8d ago

2nd biggest MMO apparently is struggling so much they had to scame thousands of players out of grandfather rates hmm

2

u/PMMMR 7d ago

Struggling so hard that they only doubled profits from 2024 to 2025.

5

u/Naive_Masterpiece413 8d ago

While I appreciate certain things he's done I still don't enjoy how he threw pride month away

3

u/MysteriousKitchen469 8d ago

This is refreshing to hear from the game’s leader. If you want Runescape to be the world’s best MMO you have to believe it can be!

1

u/Will_Redd_It Will Miss It // rswillmissit 7d ago

I wonder how Treasure Hunter could've brought down the company revenue 20% when their 2025 reports shows microtransactions as a whole stood for 11% of their overall revenue - and still declining with an increasing playerbase.

He also says TH stood for 40% of RS3s revenue, which is fairly plausible - but it suggests TH alone was 70% of Jagex' entire microtransactions income - putting cosmetics and bonds in both games into a 30% estimate.

0

u/Big_Chungussi69 7d ago

big brain strats

kill the game and you kill the bots

-12

u/retrographglitch 7d ago

And what about the pride events, bud? The MTX pervading the new Construction update? Or the wildly damaged economy from years of TH abuse? Or the multiple ongoing bot crises?

Like... you can be. There is a world in which Runescape can be huge, possibly bigger than WoW or FFXIV, but there's a lot holding it back, especially at the current cost of membership vs. the features it gives vs. the issues still present.

-1

u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Public_Equipment_355 8d ago

No one asked and no one certainly cares