If we all look beyond the 'deal' side of this and start delving a bit deeper into the structure of the game. Are none of you happy to support a game you play for countless hours?

A £10 rise compared to last years price is nothing compared to what other games expect.

Let's take Call of Duty for example:

Assume you spend £40.00 to get the Game on Xbox, you're then expected for fork out around £40 a year to be entitled to actually play online? Not only that, if you want those pesky map packs and extra perks you've got to fork out around £35.00 for the Season Pass?

That's £115.00 for content you can pretty much fully complete within a week or two, if not at least experience and have it become 2nd nature.

Now back to RuneScape, My own account C J is coming up to be a year old and i still haven't even touched base with half of the content available.


All those complaining of the grandfather scheme: It's never been adjusted to give you a better deal. It's not going to be the case this year. Sorry not sorry.

All those saying it's not a deal: You still actually save around £7 on your yearly membership compared to have a recurring monthly subscription but with the added benefits of 150k loyalty points, OP Aura and various cosmetics.

Most importantly though - let's remember that this money that we invest goes in to employing 400+ staff to make the game we sit and play for hours on end.

I'm up for a debate so fire away

Even if you disregard the grandfathered rates, the VIP package is 20% more expensive than the regular yearly package (Swedish prices). This suggests that you're paying 20% more for the perks which are marketed as a limited offer, i.e. a deal that is really good. In reality though, you have to compare it to the grandfathered rates, because a lot of the consumers are affected by those and will make a rational decision based off of that. If you look at the community response, you can tell that a significant number is not happy at all with this deal and likely will not be buying the package. The company will suffer economically from that, as their projected sales likely will not be met.

But let’s assume that only non-grandfathered players were targeted. The 20% would actually be slightly higher because a) it’s a time sensitive deal and b) inflation. Now, each player values the perks differently. You may look at e.g. the 365 keys and think it’s a really good deal, because keys are expensive and nice to have. If you didn’t buy this package deal, would you have bought keys? If you bought them, how much would you be willing to pay to get 1 key every day instead of bulk? Now try to quantify these questions to project an average consumer. My best bet is that to the average consumer, the keys probably aren’t worth much.

The cosmetics hold a novelty value, but there are sooo many cosmetic items. The ones in the package are hardly premium in that regard (and will probably be offered in future promotions too), so why would people pay extra specifically for those items? I mean, some would, but you have to think of it on a quantified level when you are marketing something. Replacing the outfits with Runecoins would possibly have been an appropriate alternative.

This type of valuation break-down can be applied to all of the perks to reach a somewhat fair price comparison. But I reiterate, you really don’t have to look further than the community response to understand that to a great many players, the deal is bad and I do not think Jagex realized just how poorly received it would be.

I think the main things is, while technically you DO save money with the extra spins, cosmetics, etc etc, it is almost the same exactly deal and still $20 dollars more than the original.
The previous promotion items that is offered is a joke considering you only got 1 thing all of last years, and while that might change, that does not entice me at all to buy it.
Outfit is whatever, aura is whatever (Ironmen can't use 50% boost), and the new animations that I've seen so far are terrible, on top of how often do people actually use emotes lol.

Yes, I know if I continue to play I will have to get mems, but are these items, disregarding loyalty because I view those as worth it, really worth the huge increased grandfathered price?
I mean, I can buy a full year of mems off Amazon right now for $60.

Comparing an MMO to a shooter I don't think is right C J. Personally I do not agree with maps being required with DLC but that's besides the point, I never play console games anymore, but generally those who buy season-passes still get dlc for the next few months. I would say it is just the equivalent of buying members, not a vip package.

All I feel is that besides the classic swords, most of the cosmetics will probably not  be used at all, the aura I have mixed feels about but doesn't matter as much to me because play style, vip badge is trash, never used the forums last year so I can't say anything, and yeah.
We all have opinions, I just feel like none of this justifies the $40 more I'd have to spend.