The developer Andrew Gower has made so much money with his work on the MMORPG RuneScape that his new own MMORPG, “Brighter Shores”, is now supposed to focus entirely on the happiness of the players, he says in an interview. The new MMORPG Brighter Shores is set to be released on Steam in the third quarter of 2024.
Who is it?
- Andrew Gower founded the now immensely successful MMORPG studio Jagex in 2001 together with his brother Paul and was the main developer of RuneScape for almost a decade.
- In 2010, he left the board of Jagex and founded his own company “Fen Research Ltd.”.
- In 2007, he was already considered a multimillionaire and one of the 700 richest entrepreneurs in the UK, with his fortune estimated at around £196 million at that time.
RuneScape and its retro variant “Old School RuneScape” are popular MMORPGs on Steam:
MMORPG Developer Wants Many Players, Not Much Money
He says today: In an interview with GamesRadar , Andrew Gower introduces his new MMORPG “Brighter Shores”. He says:
We are in the fortunate position that we do not need external investors because I am able to finance the whole project myself due to previous successes. There are no external investors, no publisher, no one breathing down my neck, saying we need to meet certain targets.
According to Gower, he wants players – as many as possible. They should like his game. He misses leading an MMORPG and having many players enjoy his MMORPG.
Gower says he is focused on developing a game that as many people as possible will like – and not on making a lot of money. He hopes that this will lead to one thing or another.
How many are working on the MMORPG Brighter Shores? Currently, he has a team of 8 people, he could have paid more, but he wants to focus on a team that he can finance without external investors.
When the game is released and grows larger, the team should grow as well.
An MMORPG to Unwind After a Hard Day
What ideas does he have? As an idea for Brighter Shores, Gower has that players could automate some tedious content.
Players already do this in MMORPGs now and work with rubber bands on the controller or weights on the keyboard. Normally, MMORPGs would fight against such methods, but he wants to make this automation part of his game.
Those who want to can automate tasks like “forging 1,000 swords or chopping down trees” and then receive worse results than if they do it manually, but have something to look forward to when they log in.
Brighter Shores should encourage players to try out as many things as possible and will frequently change what the “most effective way” is to achieve a goal.
Gower sees Brighter Shores as a “more relaxed, fun” variant of MMORPGs, especially compared to RuneScape. It is supposed to be a game that one can play after a hard day to unwind and enjoy:
