Runescape charges €7.5 a month lol. Didn't see that one coming now did you? :P

And I know runescape didn't get popular just by its "bad looks", Jagex has great sense of humor and if you're a fan of monty python then I advice you to do all the quests in runescape as they make a lot of jokes about it.

Ps: You should really try to cut down a tree on runescape with a herring. If you know what I mean :) 

It's an impressive price they get away with, but still low for a subscription based MMO.  Other subscription games are just more expensive, and F2P + bonus games will have pretty expensive 'bonuses' you can buy.  Really there are single items costing more than that monthly fee.

I'd say Runescape had a 'right place, right time' type of success, which they used to their advantage and kept hold of very well.  And with that line of thought, you could be right that it may be profitable for them to keep on the same engine just so their existing users are moving to something familiar.  Whether most of them accept the lack of graphic update we'll see in the future.

Euhm, I think runescape is one of the most profitable mmorpg's out there though. Their game works on Java by the way, pretty cheap for what they get in return if you ask me.
There might be single items costing more then a monthly fee, but MMO's like that don't have 1-2million members paying €7.5 a month+ lot's of cash through ads. I can only name one MMO that I'm pretty sure of that makes more money then runescape and that is WoW. Feel free the tell me more MMO's that make more cash then Jagex with one game. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I just don't know any besides WoW.

I'm just saying that it would be dumb for Jagex to release an MMO that has graphics on par with WoW(I know WoW has crappy graphics as well, but the gap between rs and WoW is enormous) because the competition would be a lot fiercer then.

Upon looking at the site it's almost half 7.5 euros, especially if you buy more than one month at a time. It's only that price for SMS or phone subs, it goes as low as 3.8 euros a month with different payment options. With a cost so varied it's hard to estimate how much they make.

I used to be a big fan of Runescape, and I think it's great for what it is, a web based MMORPG. It's pretty deep and lots of things to do. The only problems are that Jagex continuously releases terrible updates and there is only so much grinding you can do before you've had enough.

As for WoW, I could never get into it. Just never found it fun. WoW also has overrated graphics, the blurry low polygon look does nothing for me.

If you're member for more then 12 months in a row then it's cheaper yeah. They list that price instead of the real one your going to pay. It also depends of course what method you use. Credit card will probably be the least expensive one, but they have lots of methods for paying(I know they don't get all the money you pay when you make your self member with a cell phone for example)

And it also depend in what country you live in. UK will probably be the cheapest, but you don't want to live in a country like Australia believe me :) You're paying a lot more then.

But the cheapest method in my country is €5, but I never paid with a credit card. I used my cell phone because I can transfer cash from my mom her bank anyway lol.

i too used to be a big fan, and ur right, the "updates" were horrendous and they basically ended up bending over backwards for the many little kids who played the game, making it a painful experience in the long run. i have a bad feeling about this upcoming game, i think they are going to find a way to screw things up once again.