Andrew Gower’s new studio unveiled

Jagex co-founder Andrew Gower left the studio to pursue a pet project to enable him to make more games himself.

In an interview with Develop, Andrew Gower said he left the RuneScape studio because he didn’t want to get “bogged down” by game development challenges he has already faced.

Gower set up a new studio, Fen Research, in 2010 in order to work on a new programming language that’s specially design for creating games.

When asked why he felt the need to leave Jagex, instead of starting the project there, he said: “I could have done, but it would have almost have been a distraction.

“It was very different from what Jagex was doing, which was focusing on MMOs. The danger of me doing it there would have been that it would have been on the sidelines and an annoying little distraction; ‘Andrew’s pet project’ so to speak, as opposed to being a serious thing in its own right.”

Gower explained that he was solving the same issues time and again with online and network games.

Although his desire to pursue the new programming language prompted him to leave, it hasn’t affected his relationship with Jagex.

“I just wanted to continue this idea,” he said.

“We left on friendly terms and I really wanted to pursue it and focus my energy and see if I could make it work or not. It’s been sitting in the back of my mind, half there for the last ten years, and I kept trying to come back to it, chipping away at it, and I couldn’t quite solve it.

“Eventually I sort of had a breakthrough and finally managed to sort out what I was trying to do, and did just that.”

You can read Develop’s full interview with Andrew Gower here.