Jagex Games Studio, UK-based massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) developer, just announced that it has enabled bitcoin payments for the ever-popular and venerable MMO game RuneScape. This means that gamers who inhabit the virtual world of RuneScape will now be able to use virtual currency to buy virtual items (all virtually significant.)

The announcement comes after payment company for Jagex, Adyen, partnered with BitPay, Inc. to enable bitcoin processing. Thus making Jagex the first company to accept bitcoins through Adyen’s platform. Headquartered in Amsterdam and San Francisco, Ayden is a global payments processing company that provides point-of-sale support and digital transactions for over 187 currencies.

“An advantage of bitcoin is that it is still new and shiny enough to generate interest in the payment experience simply through the fact that it exists,” says David Parrott, Payment Services Director at Jagex.

As a virtual currency, bitcoin provides a lot of benefits for gaming and MMOs in particular. Since microtransactions are the norm for the free-to-play industry, reducing merchant risk and easing consumer payments is a must for getting customers to spend a $1 here and $5 there.

RuneScape 3 logo

RuneScape a free-to-play MMO with microtransactions

RuneScape is an MMORPG game featuring strong fantasy tropes developed by Jagex that launched in 2001 with a free-to-play ad supported model and a pay-to-play membership available delivering access to greatly increased content launched in 2002. This free-to-play model is known as “freemium” where particular pieces of content or quality of life enhancements are behind pay walls that cost a minimal amount of money.

Parrott believes that adding bitcoin payments will increase revenue by making it easier for a new audience to enter into the RuneScape community.

He adds: “As a business that operates on a freemium model–where the payment process needs to be compelling enough to convert cost free customers into paying ones–not having a barrier to entry for bitcoin users makes sense.”

RuneScape is a highly accessible MMORPG with more than 13 years of content, updates, and upgrades under its virtual belt. It predates even Blizzard Entertainment’s cultural juggernaut World of Warcraft, which launched in 2004, and has seen three iterations from RuneScape to RuneScape 3 over the years.

Microtransactions entered the game in 2012 via Solomon’s General Store, adding RuneCoins as a premium currency that could be bought for real cash and used to buy cosmetic items.

In 2013, Jagex announced that RuneScape 3 had brought in 300,000 new players and since launch the game had seen 220 million accounts created.

Jagex is also the developer of numerous other free-to-play games on the market including 8Realms, Ace of Spades, and recently-shuttered Transformers Universe.

Image credit: Jagex Games Studio via runescape.com