In January 2001, brothers Andrew and Paul Gower launched a browser game from their family home in Nottingham, England. By 2026 the franchise had generated over $3 billion in lifetime revenue and 300 million accounts. This episode looks at how RuneScape's Java browser delivery and free tier reached players on library and school computers, how its classless, action-based progression and combat triangle worked, and how the engine was rebuilt from 2D sprites in 3D spaces to RuneScape 2 in 2004, RuneScape 3 in 2013, and a standalone C++ client in 2016.

We cover the Falador Massacre of June 6, 2006, when a construction-skill bug let players kill defenseless bystanders in a safe zone, the October 2011 bot nuke update that banned 1.5 million bots in a day by scrambling the game's code, the Botany Bay public punishment area, the 2007 trade restricti ...