Jagex has unveiled an incoming price hike for RuneScape membership, boosting the annual cost of the premium subscription service to as much as $131.88 a year. That’s a 32% increase over the previous price of around $99.48 a year, and it aligns it drastically closely with World of Warcraft.
In 2024, the membership’s most recent increase hit, bumping the price up by a small amount, but enough to make fans standoffish about the future of the game. Then, months later, another controversy hit when ‘payment tiers’ were redesigned with elements that were received extremely poorly by fans of the MMORPG.
RuneScape Prices Rising Again
Jagex has announced that RuneScape’s premium membership prices are set to rise effective immediately. The jump will take the monthly price from $13.99 to $14.99, while the annual subscription leaps from $99.48 to $131.88 a year.
It has been compared to a pricing model similar to World of Warcraft, but that game has not budged on its financial model for more than twenty years.
Bizarrely, fans noticed that the update was announced via a brand-new profile created on Reddit, which, at the time of writing, was just two days old. It posted the messages on the RuneScape subreddits and immediately took a hammering in the negative karma stakes.
In the full article on the RuneScape website, it was explained:
Over the last two years, your support has enabled substantial updates like Leagues, Amascut, Thieving 120, The Return to the Desert Series and Group Ironman – as well as significant improvements to player support and anti-cheat.
As we look to the future, the exciting roadmaps and announcements we’ve recently shared are the biggest and most ambitious we’ve ever done, and all part of a wider shift to make RuneScape games even better: from enhancing our core systems, to improving our supporting services, and ensuring continued delivery of the kind of updates players value most.
The new membership costs will ‘support’ the further development of the ecosystem, it was said. That’s why, active immediately, prices are being boosted. Bonds will also be impacted by the price hikes.
Are you disappointed to hear the news about a new RuneScape price hike? Let us know what you’re thinking on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Marathon’s Rewards Pass is getting an update
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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