RuneScape Partners with WildTangent for Marketing and
Exclusive US Advertising Program
World's fastest growing massively multiplayer online game
will extend its reach to consumers and advertisers in the US
Redmond, WA - July 13th 2006 - Jagex Ltd, creators of
RuneScape, one of the world's most popular massively
multiplayer online games, has signed a landmark deal making
WildTangent, Inc. their marketing and exclusive premium
advertising sales partner in the US. The advertising deal will
draw on WildTangent's expertise in selling advertising
campaigns in and around games. The marketing agreement will
enable WildTangent to drive subscriptions of RuneScape through
the WildTangent Games Network, a distribution channel reaching
over 20 million consumer PCs through major partnerships the
leading manufacturers in North America. RuneScape has
experienced explosive growth on a global scale over the past 12
months, surpassing games like The Sims Online, Everquest, and
Star Wars Galaxies in monthly subscriptions. The game
consistently ranks #1 on search engine buzz* indexes as the
most searched for game-related term and has emerged as an
underground cultural phenomenon with teens. Predominantly aged
14 - 24, Runescape's audience exceeds 4 million monthly players
in the US and over 9 million globally. To date, the property
has remained undiscovered and untouched by advertisers in the
US. "RuneScape is not just a game. It's an iconic element of
youth culture." Said Alex St John, CEO of WildTangent Inc.,
"We're thrilled to be able to offer this legendary game content
to our consumers, and we look forward to helping advertisers to
gain relevancy with its awesome fanbase." "We are pleased to
announce this partnership with WildTangent." Said Constant
Tedder, Managing Director of Jagex, the developer and publisher
of RuneScape. "They have a long track record of delivering
successful gaming campaigns for major advertisers in the US,
and as a fellow game publisher we trust that they will protect
the integrity of our game while enabling advertisers to
effectively reach our valuable audience. WildTangent also
enables us to market RuneScape on the desktops over 60% of
consumer PCs in the US, which I suspect will grow our market
share considerably." The WildTangent Games Network boasted more
than 500 million game plays in 2005 and expects that number to
rise substantially in 2006. The downloadable games market
caters to a surprisingly broad audience, from young kids and
adults to mainstream and hard-core gamers alike, and the
WildTangent multi-genre online games are designed for players
of all levels of experience, all ages and all interests. From
Yahoo Games search ENDS About Jagex Ltd. Jagex Ltd, was founded
to be a significant global games business, developing and
operating multi-player online games. With proprietary graphics
compression and network communication technologies, Jagex has
proved its effectiveness with its most popular game, RuneScape.
All games developed by Jagex are based on original concepts
designed in-house. About WildTangent, Inc. Founded in 1998,
WildTangent is the leading publisher of online and downloadable
games. WildTangent is the pioneer of in-game and around-game
advertising solutions. The company publishes over 250 leading
1st and 3rd party game titles through a distribution network,
that includes the WildTangent games network, Wildgames.com,
leading PC Manufacturers, ISPs, and portals. From family
friendly games like the Polar franchise to action adventure
titles such as Fate, WildTangent provides online entertainment
which appeals to a broad range of consumers. In 2005
WildTangent won major OEM distribution deals that ship The
WildTangent games console directly on the desktops of Dell and
HP and Toshiba notebooks, representing over 60% of PCs in North
America. For more information, please contact: Worldwide
Communications & Television Siobhan Aalders - (212)
445-8018, siobhan@wctv.com Or Jacqueline Newell - (212)
445-8254, jacque@wctv.com
