Jagex hopes to have RuneScape on tablets by the end of the year
"Would easily be the most ambitious game ever put on tablet, right?"
Incredibly popular, incredibly big, 12-year-old browser MMO RuneScape could be released on tablets before the end of the year.
That's the plan. "We're working really, really hard to do tablets by Q4 this year," Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard told IGN (via Modojo).
It's made possible by Jagex's work transposing RuneScape, traditionally a Java game, into HTML5. This will culminate with a RuneScape relaunch - graphical overhaul - this summer.
Added chief marketeer David Solari: "It stretches the imagination of what's possible on tablet right now. I mean, RuneScape would easily be the most ambitious game ever put on tablet, right? So, that excites us.
"We're used to taking on these crazy challenges and pushing things to the limit - HTML5 is a great example of that. A lot of people aren't ready to go where we've gone already, so we think we can do it."
Smartphones could be "a window into the game", Gerhard mulled, "but it's probably as a subset or augmentation of the game rather than the core game experience".
Gerhard is also "very excited" about Smart TVs and doesn't think Jagex is "that far away from being able to do something very interesting there".
Consoles? He's interested, and getting it working would be easy, but he doesn't want to have to split the audience to appease Sony or Microsoft's online restrictions - the familiar old red-tape.
