'Staunchly British' Jagex sets the record straight about its new ownership
Jagex doesn't take kindly to being called an American company these days, it appears. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, CEO Mark Gerhard set the record straight about the recently reported deal that put the British game studio under the purview of an American investment firm.
Because the deal was made earlier last year, Gerhard sees this as old news and stressed that the company was trucking on much the same as it ever was. "The insinuation that this is a company that somehow now is run by bankers in the US again couldn't be further from the truth," he said. "Sure we therefore have some American shareholders, but the management and the culture and the ethos and everything else is the same people, in the same hands, and staunchly British."
He also clarified why the studio's profits were reported to be down: "If you look at our company's house filings, revenues are up but profits are down, and those aren't because we're doing a crap job, that's because we're consciously taking those profits and ploughing them back into the business."
Gerhard said that the company was "very, very selective" when it came to investors, and that it feels completely comfortable with the current board of directors. He said that the new investors were not interfering with the day-to-day development and operations of Jagex's ever-expanding library of titles: "I'm very excited for the year ahead and everyone in the studio is very focused on, not just making RuneScape and 8Realms a financial success, but our work on Stellar Dawn and even Transformers coming together to make truly great games for this year."
