The negative reaction of players upon the release of their latest update, the Evolution of Combat for their flagship product Runescape, the slipping deadlines of releasing Transformers MMO, and slow growth of their Facebook game Carnage Racing released by their US Studio adds to the overall growth issues of the company. In addition, the recent departures and layoffs of several long serving employees is also a factor in the recent destabilization.

Jagex might be considering to shrink its number of game servers and support staff even further to cut down on the operational costs.

Additionally, as cited in reviews posted by anonymous employees from Jagex on glassdoor's website, a 10+ hour work shift and mandatory overtime with low salaries has started becoming a company trend recently which has catalysed destabilization of employee productivity. Most of the reviews point towards mismanagement in the upper echelon going unchecked.

It could just be late paperwork because of external audits. Possibly Treasury, Taxation and Gambling bodies wanting to have a look at Runescape's gambling for minors called Squeal of Fortune. They did think of the children, they capped it at $200 per day.

@Jakob "They did think of the children, they capped it at $200 per day."

Yes because children are usually given around $6000 spending money per month.

Runescape's kiddie gambling is revolting, exploting children always is.
But the delay with the paperwork might be because it opens up money laundry possibilities. Most players don't think of goldfarmers as international organised crime, but they are. One sided transactions like gambling, invite money laundry. Given that the owner of Runescape is an investment banker in New York. I've got my fingers crossed that Runescape is being properly audited, hence the delay.

Jagex's main game, Runescape, was the only reason they were able to branch out into different studios and new games.

Since Runescape is their main and most proftiable game, the fact that it is going down the drain with each update explains why the company is in trouble.

Jagex had more than twice the amount of Runescape members in 2006 than they do today, which is mostly because of repetitive unwanted updates affecting graphics, gameplay, and stability.

Many players still prefer the old 2005-2007 version of the game and many are trying to show Jagex just how many people want it back, as do I.

If Runescape is not reverted to an earlier 2005-2007 version or if drastic changes don't occur within the direction of Runescape, the game will fail along with the company.

And if they do not, I will enjoy nothing more than to see this company run itself into the ground.

These past 5-6 years, Jagex has shown little community support, little community feedback, etc.

Bring back the old Runescape, or you will crash and burn Jagex.

Jagex, Jagex, Jagex... When will you learn? You need us, the players, so your company can keep running. We, however, dont need you and your mismanagement and games.

Don't forget that the pay-gambling aspect of the Squeal of Fortune was released 2 days into this financial year (quite a coincidence) and won't affect the overdue report.

It makes you wonder how bad things are if they can't (won't?) release the financial report on time.

RS IS DOOMED

IT's jagex's own fault, they updated the game while the runescape community didn't want the update now a shitload of people have quit the game.

/facepalm

If Jagex put all of their effort into one MMO and perhaps a few back-up games such as Carnage Racing and Ace of Spades, then Jagex wouldn't be in this mess, since Transformer's Online could be a massive success to another dev but I doubt it will go well for Jagex. I understand many quit due to EoC but SoF and Solomons makes up for that

It's because they don't want the Runescape crowd to know there's millions being pored into the squeal of fortune. Hiding the fact that 90% of the player base are nothing more then Hippocrates that have already pored hundreds of dollars in each.

Ren at stellar Dawn Central didn't report it until Christmas last year anyway... Jagex takes record turn over from subscription fees every year anyway without fail even the removal of free trade didn't dent there run.

People say all sorts of stupid things there turn over from subscripion even went up the entire time free trade was gone.

@Nick Jagex is hiring more staff alot more they have been all year theres no sign of shrinkage appart from maybe the guys that worked on 8Realms. They took on alot more staff for Runescape especially.

Also did you not notice the record turn over from subscriptions that happened year & year after 2007?

Along with the comments above suggesting issues with the game, Jagex have revoked moderator privileges who have addressed concern over in-game issues, as well as preventing players on social networks from commenting on their status updates.

Given the accessibility of the 2009-10 report online and the controversy surrounding its reasoning for certain game updates, it is not surprising that Jagex would want to withhold this information for as long as possible.

In particular, the vote for the return of wilderness and free trade only had the option of 'yes', despite anyone or any bot for that matter having the potential to vote. Similarly, the survey on the EOC more recently was statistically unsound, biased, misinterpreted, with misleading percentage-only results for responses.

Jagex are not learning from their mistakes, and continue to mislead, trick, and downright lie to their client base, while turning the game into a get-rich-quickk scheme of squeal of fortune for players, and solomon's store for microtransactions.