Partners for
LIVE
Live ops expertise meets all-action extravagance as Jagex partners with Flying Wild Hog. It’s the Runescape maker’s debut third-party title and the Shadow Warrior developer’s first live game – Seth Barton talks to both teams about their new partnership.
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evelopers and publishers talk of great partnerships, but often that boils down to the developers making the game and the publisher selling it. Complementary skills, but ones that were executed more often in turn rather than in tandem. Ongoing live games often displaced the publisher role, with the developer instead skilling-up to take charge of marketing, UA and monetisation – which can be a pretty steep hill to climb. But surely there’s a better way? Runescape creator Jagex certainly thinks so. And so it has utilised its 20 years of experience in running live games, or living games as the company calls its titles, to launch Jagex Partners – a third-party publishing arm announced back at Gamescom 2018. The aim was to utilise its hard-won skills in running such games for the benefit of third-party developers. But living games are a long-term business, and so Jagex hasn’t rushed into anything, taking almost two years to announce its first partnership under the initiative. And that partner is Flying Wild Hog, the Polish developer of visceral action-packed titles – best known for the jaw-dropping action and wisecracking humour of the Shadow Warrior franchise – though this new title is the first to come out of its Krakow studio. Runescape’s quirky fantasy and Shadow Warrior’s blood-soaked action are unlikely bedfellows on the
surface but the partnership of their creators’ skills makes a lot of sense. A MATCH MADE IN KRAKOW
Jeff Pabst, VP third-party and partnerships, starts by explaining that working relationship: “We found a partner in the Hogs that makes great games, they know how to make fun games, they have a very clear style, and they had an ambition and a desire to make online multiplayer titles. They brought in people to help do that, they had a really clear vision on the product. But they needed a partner who had experience in building that community involvement and engagement, the live ops experience, and all the stuff that Jagex does in spades. “And so we’re hoping it’s one plus one equals three, because we’re going to bring a lot of what we consider our DNA secret sauce, and they’re gonna bring in a lot of theirs. And we’re looking to make a great title out of that,” Pabst formulates. Michal Szustak, CEO of Flying Wild Hogs is on the same page: “The [Jagex] guys love the game. It was an easy start. We think it’s a great fit, we’ve an experienced team, we love making action-explosive games. They were looking for something that can engage players for years to come. When we understood that they had 20 years of experience making community-based living games, that was like ‘wow, that’s the best partner that we can find’.”
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