"Luckily the passion that OSRS Gold fuelled these early days have stayed with me through the course of development. Being the only person to collaborate closely with Jagex directly on this project is the ultimate dream come true," he says. "I didn't think I'd ever get the backing of the same studio that inspired me in the beginning.

The transition from hobbyist to fan project was certainly scary however, looking back at where I've ended up, and the support I've received for establishing Games by Malcs as an emerging studio, it's definitely paid off for the most successful."

Despite the close connection between Melvor Idle and RuneScape, and the involvement direct of Jagex in the game, the publisher chose to keep the game an original IP, rather than launch it as an officially-licensed RuneScape spin-off. This was in part recognition of the fact that Malcolm succeeded in a place that Jagex had failed.

"We actually did look at the idea of creating an idle RuneScape game some years ago, but it was not until RuneScape: Idle Adventures," Pfeiffer says. "In Alpha, we stopped development to focus upon the main RuneScape games.

We have always believed RuneScape's potential in the area of idle games and Melvor Idle proves that RuneScape can be a great idle game. However, Melvor Idle stands up on its own merits too, as we wanted to remain in line with the concept of the game that Brendan was able to envision when he began creating Melvor Idle."

Pfeiffer also points to the success of Melvor Idle as evidence that talent can emerge from the community of any game and this is something Jagex has already discovered. "We've always observed the RuneScape community to be an excellent resource of potential talent to Jagex Not just in terms of game developers , but every other role in a games studio," Pfeiffer claims. "RuneScape has had almost 300million accounts made in the last 20 years, so the amount of highly skilled people that have been Cheap OSRS Gold a part of the game is immense."