Runescape, Economics, and Cryptocurrency?

Every so often I catch myself drawn back into checking up on Runescape and just a few weekends ago it was a double XP weekend, so what better of a time? If I remember correctly during the weekend, there were around 140,000 players on. In the image above I’m showing 88,000 players online (pre-double xp) and 103,000 players online (post double xp). These are actually increasing numbers for the game as far as I understand. I remember over a decade ago there was around 200,000 players (including bots) and in more recent years it has lost more players.

During the double XP weekend I saw a lot of people skilling together in select areas and just like years ago.. nothing's changed and the internet trolls are everywhere.. which provided some interesting drama while I was skilling. For whatever reason I’ve always been the type to enjoy the grindy MMORPG games and have tried games like TERA, WoW, AION, The Secret World, Global Mu, and a few others. Games like these most of the time have marketplaces for exchanging items, whether they are implemented by the game or by the community on a forum.

It was these types of games that taught me a different way of thinking when it came to game currencies / items. While I played these types of games on and off, I started to pick up a few important ideas at a younger age while learning to “play the market”.

• Time is Money & Supply and demand were terms that stand out trying to learn basic economy in these games and prices.
• Some of these games had limited number of items released. These items became worth more and more over time as the game economy got better, less items in circulation, and players themselves driving the price up. HODL comes to mind more recently.
• Merching/Flipping/Day Trading. Whether you spam “looking to buy/sell” comments in a crowded space or use the in-game marketplaces, buying low and selling high became a whole new game within a game.

When I played I mostly skilled and whatever I gold I made from anything, I just reinvested back into skilling or the market. When I did stop playing I always left stuff in my bank to keep myself occupied if I came back or for double xp weekends.

Some of these items that I’ve had for years have gone up in value, crashed, or stayed around the same, so it’s interesting to compare what is in demand now more or less compared to years ago and over time. I managed to get some time to mess around leveling up but sold a bit of it while the prices were high and before they crashed.

Not only did I enjoy playing this grindy ass game, it taught me basic concepts like supply and demand, inflation, day trading, and HODL’ing. I also remember buying a discontinued item a few years back for 20,000,000gp, and now it's worth around 80,000,000gp (a 4x return). I regret not buying more of them and I’m sure when it comes to cryptocurrencies, if people aren’t investing or researching into them now, they’ll regret it later as well.

After playing for a bit I think this game might make a comeback, especially if they’re pushing for the ability to play from your phone, which will increase their player base significantly opening up to that type of market. All this could also mean prices will start to get inflated again.. I’m still not sure if I’ll come back to the game as a regular but if people are thinking of coming back or starting up new, now might be the time before in-game inflation!