Through out this semester, I have been working on a digital artifact surrounding the Old School Runescape (OSRS) Community to better observe the contribution nostalgia and participatory media culture has had on the narrative of the game over time to continue the franchises popularity. I have done so through using my autoethnographic research collected from personal participation within the OSRS community via Twitter. This was to establish an understanding of how the community effects the developers in their updates towards the game to satisfy the communities craving of the nostalgic elements from their earlier playthroughs throughout the franchise’s 20-year history while balancing the need for new content to retain the interest of their audience consisting of new players.

It would be worth watch my Pitch and Beta to understand the progression of this project and the journey I have faced to get to this point.

Old School Runescape is an MMORPG modelled by the continuation of the 2007 edition of the franchise, where the developers only enforce updates if they receive the majority vote from the community through in-game polls. When scripting my pitch, I had presumed that the OSRS community was one to admire from the standpoint of my analytical framework. I thought that the culture of the developers using the construct of participatory media culture to benefit the games production would entail that the community has a good relationship with the developers at Jagex. I believe I referenced within my pitch that the example would be one to note for other games developers that wished to build solid communication with their player base to accomplish a balance between ‘fan service’ and unseen content. However, the more I research into the OSRS community, I have come to find that the model is not as tremendous as first interpreted.

I found that many members of the community on Twitter, as well as other platforms I had mentioned within my field site such as the subreddit r/2007scape, were quite critical on the current direction that the Old School Runescape developers at Jagex were taking with OSRS. It seemed that a large majority of community members using these platforms were discontent with the attitude Jagex members had towards third party content and their persistent ‘obsession’ with developing their player-verse-player (PvP) elements in-game despite the heavy decrease in popularity in modern times. I have been able to reflect upon the role of a member of the community through my autoethnographic research as I placed myself amongst the same community members that are unhappy with the direction that OSRS is heading.

It became obvious as I observed the critics of other community members that nostalgia is what’s most important to them, becoming my first epiphany when starting my research and aiding in my development of my analytical framework. Unfortunately, the feeling of nostalgia is typically very difficult to fulfil as it relies on the notion that a comforting memory can be reproduced despite the changes in circumstance, culture, and sense of self over time. This is clear within the instance of Old School Runescape as it is impossible to regain the experiences accomplished within previous playthroughs as time has altered the experience through added environmental aspects and the evolution of the player who has aged alongside the franchise.

With Old School Runescape being a game dedicated to the 2007 edition of the franchise, it is still continuously updated on the terms of popular vote. That is, the community are the ones to decide what expansions will be added to the main narrative of Gielinor. Participatory media culture refers to the audience of a given media niche to be active and providing contribution as affiliation, expression, collaborative problem-solving and circulation. By perceiving the true potentials of the state of media production and distribution within the digital age offers a whole new decentralisation to knowledge on given topics.

With this research in mind, I have been able to develop my digital artifact to align with the views of the community in order to develop a stable presence amongst the community. While I had initially intended my digital artifact to consist of a YouTube channel, I had changed my idea to encompass a blog and Twitter account as I felt it gave more opportunity to view and interact with what the community was interested in as video production would limit the accessibility of community members. If YouTube became my community interaction source, only a very limited demographic would have the ability to create video content, in turn limiting my exposure to greater community opinion. Through my experiences with community interaction via Twitter specifically, I’ve been able to produce content that takes the community views observed, along with additional outer research conducted via my field site platforms, to present the concerns back to the audience to view from a removed standpoint; giving community members the opportunity to inspect their concerns from a third-person perspective.  

However, the real question still remains; Is the community aiding in their quest to recover the same nostalgic emotions from Old School Runescape or rather crafting a whole new narrative that has enticed a whole new subculture that has fallen for the current environment, maintaining its popularity overtime? It’s hard to speculate due to the failure of diversity within my research. While I have attempted to conduct as much research as possible, I have fallen short due to unforeseen circumstances. While I have my assumptions from the limited content creation I’ve been able to manage, it would be unethical of me to finalise my thoughts at this point.

Nonetheless, I have still been able to reignite my passion for the franchise through this project and admire the dynamic evident within the OSRS community which I hope to continue to study and observe into the break. While this project comes to a close, I feel my autoethnographic research has merely began and I can’t wait to get to research more into the vast corners of the Old School Runescape community to truly understand their contribution to the franchises success.

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[Discribed within embedded video]