Jagex opening publishing division

Cambridge developer Jagex is planning to open an entire publishing division.

That’s according to CEO Mark Gerhard, who told Develop his company’s plans in today’s interview following the news that the huge studio moved into third-party publishing with War of Legends.

"This whole new endeavor, if you will, is really something we’re looking to gear up," revealed Gerhard. "We’re looking to find more talented studios that are looking to get into the online space, and bring them to market."

He later added: "We’re actually trying to build a complete division out of it."

Jagex, which employs over 400, and is currently most renowned for it’s work on the RuneScape CEO and the Fun Orb portal, is also keen to attract more developers.

"The main message we really want to get out there is that we’re looking to do this on a bigger scale," Gerhard told Develop. "We’re looking to work with more people and help more people. We don’t have a commercial team of 50 people here, so we’re pretty much going to be relying on people coming to us and saying ‘We’ve got this really great game. Do you want to check it out? Do you want to work with us?” If the quality of the game is good, we’ll definitely look for an opportunity."

Bolstered by its experience as a developer and its rich proprietary platform, Jagex is hoping that it is well poised to establish itself as a noteworthy publisher.

To read the full interview, in which Gerhard discusses the decision to become a developer-publisher, the challenges of working with other teams and plans for the future, click here.