Developer Jagex is positioned to ship Runescape across all consoles, free-to-play and with complete cross-platform capabilities, if CEO Mark Gerhard has anything to say about it. Which, as CEO, he does. Gerhard told Develop that some console owners wanted to charge for Runescape, which he sees as absolute lunacy. “People get this for free. You’re shooting yourself in the foot,” Gerhard said. “But Sony was ahead of the game; they said they get it. They understand free. But all three said, ‘okay, but we won’t let our console play online with any other.'”
Gerhard is waiting for the console market to realize cross-play is a universally beneficial strategy, at least with Runescape, as it doesn’t have any graphical aspects that favor one console over another. “I think they [Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo] will open up their platforms a bit more, liberate them a bit more. It’s just a matter of time,” he said. “But we’re well placed to be on all devices soon so we can have a global community.”
