It was really not earning any revenue, but we'd put so much work in by this point and there were so many players playing," said Andrew Gower in one of the book's numerous interviews with OSRS Gold. "It was thrilling to watch 2,000 to 3,000 gamers playing the game simultaneously, lots of players chatting on forums and loving RuneScape. I just would like to continue making it. It was good fun, even if it wasn't financially profitable".

This is the reason we decided to let the free membership level remaining - they did not wish to deter the members. As we've learned, it absolutely worked, its popularity only grew. But according to The First 20 Years explains, RuneScape didn't reach its peak without some blunders along the way.

Even those of us who played the game daily during the 2000s might struggle with the first-ever release that is now called RuneScape Classic. Players could attack anyone, even each other. The graphics were not simple. It could accommodate only 1,200 people at once without going down.

Games can't be allowed to be a mess no more. Titanfall 2 isn't getting the necessary resources to correct its online gameplay on PC. Anthem was canceled midway through the development of its massive overhaul. Fable Legends was canceled before it even had the chance to launch. You either must be Fortnite or you'll die trying.

A developer's passion may be largely irrelevant to a publisher's, too. Dragon Age 4 has been delayed twice due to higher-up interference constantly dictating the game's direction. Metal Gear fans are the ones who most definitely want single-player gameshave received the game with co-op, Metal Gear Survive in 2018. And that's not even to go into the many subsidiary games Activision Blizzard wastes on constant Call of Duty development.

Thank God Jagex was founded at a point when it could stay independent. When the number of players began to stagnate in the late 2000s the publisher could have pulled the plug on it all. Hell, Raven Software started laying people off while Warzone was making billions, and even a win could mean disaster for the human beings behind the game.

The success stories we have aren't really rare exceptions. The stars needed to align to allow Among Us to find its player base long after launch as well as perhaps the most significant previous example - and without the help of a large publisher was Undertale in the year 2017.

This is why Buy RuneScape Gold The Beginning 20 Years isn't just essential reading for any fans of gaming, it's essential also for anyone interested in the direction that the gaming time is moving in. It's a reminder that we should all support the independent scene which is constantly fighting to be noticed in a vast market.