Image via WikipediaThe Gower brothers have not made much of a splash on the Cambridge Cluster scene but have quietly built up Jagex and the RuneScape game into a £200million business with reports saying that the brothers still own 52% of Jagex with Andrew Gower owning 38.5%.
Andrew has been building games virtually since coming into this world in 1978 but he had to wait until 2001 until he came up with the idea of RuneScape. It was re-launched in 2004, after a re-write of the code, presumable to help the servers cope with the millions of users.
According to their website, Jagex has some 5.4million players active in the last two weeks. If the subscription is some £5 per month that adds up to quite an income – no wonder they have been voted as one of the top 100 places to work. Do they have “Google style” offices and perks such as top chefs, I wonder?
I cannot find much corporate information on the site but it says that Geoff Iddison, the former European CEO of PayPal, joined the company as CEO in October 2007 Was this there “Ed Schmidt moment” but without the back-up of the Google VCs? There is an interesting interview with Geoff by Matt Martin. Pity it is not a video interview as they use on the Huffington Post or Huffpo as Fred Wilson calls it. Do I need to buy and use an HD video camera?
No details on funding and I guess that they were funded by themselves from the income generated by the earlier games. In which case why do the brothers “only” own 52% of the business? Were there any VCs or angels investors? Did they use a business plan resource or did they just put in the “sweat” hours?
I hope that someone can persuade them to talk in the Cambridge Cluster soon. But as I have said before, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the “talkers” and the “doers”. Zemanta does not find much on Jagex so here is a picture of the heart of Cambridge which was covered in binary numbers last night. It is about time we had a science and technology museum at the heart of Cambridge.
Somewhere on a dusty shelf in Cambridge is the tube JJ Thompson used to “see” electrons – really the first TV. How many people know that Cambridge Cluster companies ARM and CSR power most mobile phones? If the Gower brothers sell up and cannot find a college which needs a donation and a new name, how about The Gower Science and Technology Museum in a new wing of the Fitzwilliam Museum?
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Much more detail on the comments and thanks for the help. Why did the Gowers go to New York for funding when we have Amadeus in Cambridge and Index Ventures in London? Geneva Technology also went to New York for funding and let us hope that Jagex does as well for the Cambridge Cluster and all who work here.
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8 Comments
at 2:53 pm - 15th January 2009 Permalink
“Andrew has been building games virtually since coming into this world in 1978″
It would be more accurate to say he started programming at the age of 7, but it is impressive nevertheless.
“he had to wait until 2001 until he came up with the idea of RuneScape”
Andrew had been working on RuneScape since 1998, originally under the name DeviousMUD. While there were several complete code re-writes and a change of name along the way it is still somewhat based on his original vision. To quote Andrew “the central part of the map [drawn as a plan for DeviousMUD] is an approximate mirror image of the current map”.
“Do they have “Google style” offices and perks such as top chefs, I wonder?”
The outside and entrance is cool, but from what I’ve seen the inside is mostly just an above-par office space with the added bonus of a cool game room. On the plus side they have gym membership, games room, lots of jollies, no dress code and can put figurines on their desk.
“If the subscription is some £5 per month that adds up to quite an income”
For 06-07 they had £28.15m in turnover, pre-tax profits of £15m, post-tax profits of £10.74m and a £8.6m dividend. However, 7% of that income was from advertising sales.
“It was re-launched in 2004, after a re-write of the code, presumable to help the servers cope with the millions of users.”
It wasn’t just the server which was improved, they totally revamped the graphics engine too (which was then further improved for RuneScape HD).
“No details on funding and I guess that they were funded by themselves from the income generated by the earlier games. In which case why do the brothers “only” own 52% of the business? Were there any VCs or angels investors? Did they use a business plan resource or did they just put in the “sweat” hours?”
When they started out it was operated from Andrew’s parents house where he lived after graduating from Cambridge University. It wasn’t a big earner an in fact the dotcom bust meant that the ad revenue wouldn’t be enough to keep it alive.
So in December 2001 they set up Jagex Ltd as a commercial venture (previously Andrew had merely used the name as a sole trader) and the original shareholders were Andrew (30%), his brother Paul (30%) and their head of business Constant Tedder (40%). This soon got changed and by February 2002 Constant had 20%, Paul had 20%, Andrew had 59% and the third of the “Gower Brothers” Ian Gower had 1%
It stayed like this without any outside investment until 2005 when Insight Venture Partners came along. They bought a ‘minority stake’ in the company, meaning the owners were Insight (35%), Constant (13%), Paul (13%), Andrew (38.35%) and Ian (0.65%).
When Iddison joined in 2007 he replaced Tedder. However, in addition to Iddison, Tedder remains on the Board of Directors alongside Andrew, Paul and two people from Insight.
A lot of Jagex’s energy is currently being focussed on their upcoming sci-fi MMO MechScape which Iddison described as a “very, very big investment”.
at 3:04 pm - 15th January 2009 Permalink
Oh, and another thing. Don’t confuse players with subscribers. Many people play the free version of the game but only around 1m+ subscribe.
at 11:18 pm - 18th January 2009 Permalink
“Why did the Gowers go to New York for funding when we have Amadeus in Cambridge and Index Ventures in London?”
I don’t know why the Gowers and Tedder went with Insight. Maybe they asked around and Insight offered them the best deal?
The official line from Tedder was that: “Considering Insight’s excellent track record, talented team and dedication to the online gaming community, they were an ideal investor and we look forward to partnering to achieve great milestones for our community, our employees, and our partners.”
Sidenote: I run http://gowerarchive.googlepages.com/ which focussed on Andrew’s early years with Jagex, although it has expanded from that in the forum content.
at 10:59 pm - 22nd March 2009 Permalink
Jagex’s new venture, Mechscape, seems to be bankrolled by themselves without further investment from anywhere else. It seems Jagex has enough cash to not need outside investment.
at 12:50 pm - 8th March 2011 Permalink
“But as I have said before, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the “talkers” and the “doers”. ”
It’s true Jagex used to not be available for interviews and such but recently they have been reaching out to the community so they will probably be more available nowadays.
at 10:36 am - 11th April 2012 Permalink
He encontrado tu blog a ser bastante útil. mantener la actualización de su blog con información valiosa ……. Saludos
at 9:21 am - 18th April 2012 Permalink
Velmi pěkný článek, který byl napsán v tomto blogu a všechny myšlenky vyjádřené v tomto článku. V tomto článku, FA? Je vyjádřit myšlenky jsou velmi pěkné a je to krátké a sladké pro mě pla t tady.
at 1:07 pm - 9th December 2012 Permalink
nice blog thanks
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[...] I posted about Jagex, the very successful Cambridge Cluster games company only recently but times moves fast in the real world of Jagex. CEO Geoff Iddison has done his stint and been replaced by Mark Gerhard who has the experience to ensure that gamers can participate in a multi-player online role-playing (MORPAG) with total security. [...]
[...] up on their own. After all, several now-massive companies in our sectors have done just that- the Gower brothers and Jagex, Michael Acton-Smith and Mind Candy, David Sproxton and Peter Lord founding Aardman, all [...]
[...] up on their own. After all, several now-massive companies in our sectors have done just that- the Gower brothers and Jagex, Michael Acton-Smith and Mind Candy, David Sproxton and Peter [...]
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