Amid a quiet downsizing of RunesScape and Old School RuneScape’s longstanding Pride events, a new report alleges new Jagex CEO John “Mod North” Bellamy pushed to have the events culled, despite internal pushback, in order to focus on other content and avoid potential “backlash” from people who see such events as “woke.”
Pink News, citing anonymous employees, reports that Bellamy informed the Jagex team on April 25 that RuneScape and Old School RuneScape (OSRS) would not run their usual Pride Month events.
For years, RuneScape has celebrated Pride. RuneScape proper had the Tales of Pride event, for example, while OSRS has run various little one-offs with special minor rewards. This year, the teams behind both games organized Pride walks which invited players to parade through the game world in Pride-colored attire.
Many Jagex members reportedly pushed back against Bellamy’s decision, but the CEO apparently maintained that the devs should instead focus on “what players wanted.” An internal Q&A session reportedly saw Bellamy clarify that this move was indeed motivated by today’s political climate, and very much his own decision.
“I want to be clear, the decision for this is with me. I own it, I’m fully responsible for it,” Bellamy reportedly said, affirming that RuneScape would not be updating Tales of Pride this year and that OSRS wouldn’t release a new Pride quest. This was in spite of the fact that plenty of Pride content was apparently nearly finished or already ready to ship, with some people volunteering to finish it off-hours.
“I understand that RuneScape… is precious because it is a safe space, it is an escape from reality, and the reality that we find ourselves in is changing,” he reportedly added. “It is getting stranger, more troubling, less moral, I would argue. Games and studios are being cancelled because of content that is perceived to be ‘woke’ or representative. The pendulum is swinging back in a way we didn’t expect.”
Hope you’re having a wonderful Pride Month so far, ‘Scapers! 🌈 pic.twitter.com/OYO1FsVa2DJune 11, 2023
If you check the replies of the RuneScape or OSRS tweets about their respective Pride marches, in between the loud-and-proud slurs you’ll find a long list of people arguing that Pride events or real-world political topics of any kind have no place in games. RuneScape Pride events have also seen accompanying in-game protests, frequently filled with players spamming prejudiced messages in in-game chat. (Never mind the fruitless “art is politics” discussion, these folks seem to have missed the fact that both games are filled with explicitly political quest topics ranging from war and feudalist exploitation to racism and gender identity, yet are suddenly hung up on Pride.)
Bellamy has apparently decided that these are the people to court, reportedly telling Jagex staff to protect the “safe havens” of RuneScape at a time when “The content.. is now controversial in a way it didn’t used to be and that controversy now brings more risk than it did previously, risk that I’m personally responsible to protect against.”
“Thank you Jagex for validating the effectiveness of harassment and threats of violence,” a top-rated post on the Old School RuneScape Reddit community said of the decision.
The OSRS community has overall lampooned Bellamy’s actions left and right, creating memes and editing in-game notices or cinematics to show curvy weapons being straightened out, or likening Bellamy to a character named Sigmund, described in the game’s wiki as a high-ranking member of Humans Against Monsters, a human supremacist group.
In a letter to management, Pink News reports, opposing Jagex staff argued: “We understand that openly presenting ourselves as a diverse and inclusive company could be seen as a risk. However, as outlined below, the data from previous Pride events as well as the pronoun changes in Old School clearly shows that despite a vocal minority engaging in bigoted behaviour online, this did not translate to a loss of revenue.”
The letter concludes: “We are writing to you because we believe in Jagex, we believe in our players, and we believe that not giving into hate is the right decision for the business in the long term.”
In a comment to Pink News addressing the situation, confirming much of the report, and not disputing the rest, Jagex said: “In April, we took the difficult decision to pause work on new in-game Pride content for 2025 and communicated this with our teams. Our development focus is on crafting worlds that serve what our players have been asking us for, offering immersion, escape, and meaning.”
Jagex adds that “we’re working with our internal DEI committee to explore broader, more meaningful ways to celebrate Pride across Jagex, including possible partnerships and charitable support. Our goal is to listen, learn, and find better ways to support all players and employees.”
We’ve reached out to Jagex for further comment and clarification.
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