RuneScapewill not be running its usual annual Pride Month events this year. Jagex has run in-game Pride Month events in both RuneScape and Old-School RuneScape (OSRS) for years, including special side quests, in-game marches, and hosted LGBTQ+ charity drives for many years now, establishing the games as safe spaces for LGBTQ+ players.
According toPinkNews, when new CEO Jon Bellamy announced through the Jagex internal message board on Friday, April 25, that there would be no new Pride Month content for 2025, it caused backlash within the company.
RuneScape Celebrates First Anniversary Of Mobile With Player Rewards
Jagex are offering players a suite of rewards for logging on.
One anonymous employee, speaking to PinkNews, saw the decision as Jagex “catering to American conservatism.” Bellamy justified the decision by saying that the cancellation would allow developers more time to focus on “what players wanted.”
According to other staff members, the 2025 Pride events were either already completed or would otherwise be straightforward to implement into the game.Some even volunteered to finish the content on their own time, or asked to just host an in-game Pride parade, which would not have required development time.
Bellamy’s Response
Bellamy addressed the internal backlash with a Q&A session to address the staff’s concerns the Tuesday after the initial announcement.
He acknowledged RuneScape’s status as a “safe space” for LGBTQ+ gamers, and stating that the decision is fully rooted in the current political climate and an attempt to prevent backlash as “the reality we find ourselves in is changing,” and he wanted to ensure that Jagex is “protected against those that would wish us harm” to preserve that safe space.
[Reality] 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. —Bellamy
He goes on to say that the Pride Month 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.”
The Staff’s Open Letter
A month after the announcement and Q&A, on May 15, an open letter to Jagex management from staff DEI groups was released, trying to press the executives to restart development on the 2025 Pride Month content and commit to continued annual in-game Pride events.
The open letter pointed to the addition of pronoun changes in OSRS and how, despite some backlash from a “vocal minority,” there was no negative impact on revenue, and finished by saying,“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 response, Jagex altered their previous stance to allow “pre-programmed” Pride content on a timer. They went on to say, “As a studio, we must stay grounded in the mission we all share, and that’s making great games for players. Our job is not to use the game as an outlet for our own views, but to craft worlds that serve our players, offering immersion, escape and meaning.”
That responsibility asks each of us to apply good judgment and make creative decisions that resonate across a wide and diverse community – and that’s what we’ve tried to do here. —Jagex
The concession seems to be that last year’s Tales of Pride event will return, but with no new content or rewards. The Pride mini-quest in OSRS has been cancelled.
Players will also be permitted to host their own marches, and there was an in-game parade onJune 5.
The Community Response
The response from the community in places like Reddit has been largely negative, with apostwith around 14,000 upvotes accusing Jagex of “caving to the alt-right.”
Onecommentin particular recalls protests to the in-game Pride Month back in 2017, which resulted in significant mental health issues for one of the event’s developers, going by Wolf, over the hate he received from in-game protesters and general anti-LGBT sentiment from the wider internet, and the event did not return the next year.
Pride Month events returned in 2022, this time with much stricter moderation from Jagex, with a wave of bans against protesters posting anti-LGBT rhetoric in-game, heavily monitoring the Pride march to keep an eye out for disruptions, and even going so far as to alter in-game mechanics around event areas to prevent common protest actions like starting fires and placing cannons.
In other words, Jagex has been through this song and dance before Bellamy was in charge.
Controversy over perceived “wokeness” has unfortunately become a common sight in the gaming industry. Recent examples includetransphobic death threats against Sena Bryer, the voice ofFinal Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail’sWuk Lamat,backlash against the inclusion of Yasukeas a playable character inAssassin’s Creed Shadows, andrage about Ciri being the main playable characterinThe Witcher 4, to name a few.
There’seven a Steam curatorto point out “woke” content in games, run by 1,600 people who clearly have too much free time.
Smite Announces RuneScape Collaboration In New Cinematic Trailer
RuneScape’s Gnome Child and King Black Dragon are set to face off against the Gods!
