Jagex Defends Runescape Dragonwilds Price Amid Valheim Comparisons

RuneScape Dragonwilds costs a little more than its competitors so I asked Jagex about its pricing structure and its future plans.

Video game pricing topic is always going to be a hot. With prices rising rapidly ​​and GTA 6 is rumoured to be priced at $100 as a base version and microtransactions becoming a constant source of opposition in live service titles, finding a balance is becoming a fine art. JAGX’s pricing structure has come under fire before and a recent survey has fuelled that criticism. So it came as a surprise to some when RuneScape Dragonwilds launched in Early Access as a premium one-time purchase at $29.99 / £25.99 for comparison key competitor Valheim comes in at $19.99 / £15.49. In an exclusive launch interview with I asked creative director Rick Mod Rook Turek about that decision.

2024 is set to be a busy year, with plenty of survival games to choose from. There are older games like Valheim Nightingale and Unshrouded and upcoming PC games like Dune Awakening all competing for space in a crowded genre. All of the above with the exception of Dune Awakening (which is available for $49.99 / £41.99 as a finished product) are priced slightly lower than RuneScape Dragonwilds not to mention Valheim.

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Given the busyness of the survival genre I ask why Jagex went for a premium with Dragonwilds and how it landed on its current price point something that has caused a stir on the game's subreddit itself.

He told me that from the very first conception of RuneScape Dragonwilds we were like this game would be a premium title. And you pay the price and you get the game. We're moving beyond early access and all of these features will be free for anyone who purchases under early access as long as that feature is available. People who get early access will get 1.0.

In the future we want to be able to bring new features and new experiences maybe new modes and or new content and that will probably be with some sort of DLC. so that we can continue to build our game if people like it. And but the heart of the games that I play is not even largely driven by monetization or MTX they are premium products.

And we have some luxury with the RuneScape games they're MMOs they're living and breathing. With Dragonwilds we wanted to create something you can truly own and it was important for us to keep that promise. Things may evolve and change in the future but we will fulfill our promise to everyone who has purchased it.

The price is a little high compared to competitors though. Many comments on the subreddit are similar to Iron Gate Studios Valheim which retails for $10 less. I ask if that's a concern.

Turek says Always try not to undervalue yourself. And we did a lot of testing with the audience. And we've been doing research and when we did our alpha and previous playtests we would ask this question: So how much would you pay for this game in Early Access? We undervalued ourselves from what people said because we still wanted to maintain value for the player we have about 20 to 30 hours of content and stuff that you can discover with infinite play especially if you're really interested in building and exploring.

There's a lot out there. It's very hard to find the right price point and that's what we're seeing from players he concludes. Jagex has shadow dropped RuneScape Dragonwilds on Tuesday 15th April. It's also available now on Steam and you can check out our impressions here.