Letter To Mr Clough Regarding SOF Runescape

You need to send this to Jagex yourself. Please do not change the letter (albeit your signature) as it will devalue the movement to send letters to them.
This letter has no QFC or email attached, be aware if anybody tries to other the aforementioned to you.
In order to contact us, our display name are:  Spookie Pie & Other (Who does not want to be named).

Address:
Daniel Clough
Jagex Ltd
220 Cambridge Science Park
Milton Road
Cambridge
(UNITED KINGDOM)
CB4 0GF



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On behalf of the
RuneScape Community.
6th April 2012

Daniel Clough
Jagex Ltd
220 Cambridge Science Park
Milton Road
Cambridge
(UNITED KINGDOM)
CB4 0GF


Mr Clough,
I am writing to you for the interest of your product: RuneScape in regards to a recent piece of content: The Squeal of Fortune. I hope that this will be both informative and interesting for you to read and I suggest getting a light refreshment to read this over.

As you will very much be aware, the RuneScape team launched an update to the game feature: ‘Squeal of Fortune’. This update had the clear aim of creating revenue for Jagex Ltd, we – the community can only assume that this had the intention of increasing the revenue for the company, we the community want to support your effort in increasing the revenue for Jagex.

As you know The Squeal of Fortune allows players, on a daily basis, to spin on a roulette-style wheel containing different levels of prizes which can assist you at various levels in the game. This can range from useless items such as cabbages to free experience and untradeable items which are very expensive on the game market. The company now allows the player to earn extra tokens for spins during their day-to-day gaming experience, however also allows the player to purchase more spins with real-life currency; Which we, the community, think is wrong.

The community broadly speaking accepts the concept of the Squeal of Fortune and its mechanisms; however it expresses particular concerns over certain aspects. It encourages, whether you are willing to accept it or not, gambling in a game where minors as young as thirteen are free to play without parent supervision. This is morally wrong and could result in abnormal and risky behaviour being normalised in teenagers which could at its worse proceed to gambling addictions.

RuneScape has always been advertised as a roleplaying immersive game, upon logging in the player is transported to another world full of life to explore, the ability for the player to suspend their disbelief is lost when they log in to see a  goblin icon moving across the screen every day. Therefore one proposal the community is pushing for is a designated place for players to teleport to if they feel the need to gamble.

There should not be a way for players to buy spins using real-world currency.
Some of the high level players, loyal customers and frequent membership buyers feel that the ability to buy vast amounts of spins will inevitably allow players to buy their experience as there is a very high chance of obtaining a lamp with the ability to increase experience on a player. This depreciates the value of experience in the game where it has been previously grinded, you should note that the players accept the changing state of the game and that Jagex are attempting to reduce the amount of ‘grind’ in the game to level up. However this is different to aforementioned ‘reducing of the grind’ this is quite simply paying for experience points.

I am therefore writing on behalf of myself and the RuneScape community, asking for you to do something about the Squeal of Fortune. There are suggestions for experience lamps to be removed from the available prizes of the Squeal of Fortune or a more favourable suggestion of no longer take payments for spins, we would happily have membership increases to see this happen.

To remind you of a statement that the company has previously made: “We don’t want players to be able to buy their way to success in RuneScape. If we let players start doing this, it devalues RuneScape for others. We feel your status in real-life shouldn’t affect your ability to be successful in RuneScape." Yes, things in the corporate environment change – no, the game shouldn’t be monetized in a way that is detrimentally game-changing. There are other ways to monetize a game and this is an obvious quick-fix to fix the hole in the cash-flow bath.

Since the update, the forums have been swamped with players showing distaste to the update and suggesting alternative ideas for monetization. I suggest that you read and collate feedback and present the fact that you have done so to the community at large so that they can see you take on the feedback – this should be standard for every update, especially ones creating a rift in the game. Furthermore, your staff should be better-prepared for responses to queries and arguments on the forums – staff in Community Management often post responses on the forums with incorrect information or explanations. Forum posts are one of the main sources of official Jagex Mod quotes and you should expect for them to be cited across the internet.

We hope that you do take on board the comments made in this letter and agree that in the future the community should not have to send letters to your desk to allow their voices to be heard.

Signed

[Your Runescape Name Here]