Jagex have made it very clear on a number of occasions that they want to prevent Runescape items, primarily referring to Runescape gold, being traded for real world money. Though despite their best efforts real world trading for Runescape items continues, and if anything, grows every month with more Runescape gold selling merchants opening their online shops every month.

Jagex have attempted to warn and ban both buyers and sellers of gold. They have attempted to take legal action against a number of these Runescape gold selling merchants. They have now even tried to rope Runescape fan sites into the cause by asking Runescape players to boycott Runescape fan sites that run Runescape ads that link to Runescape gold merchant sites. So my question is, why when none of these methods have worked do they persist? I believe there are alternatives available that are worthy of consideration.

Now the solution I’m going to propose is not new, it has been suggested that many times before, but from my perspective really does seem like the best solution to the issue, and that is for Jagex to sell the Runescape gold themselves.

OK, so a lot of you are now arguing that doing so would destroy the integrity of the game, but I’d like to suggest that whilst Jagex should consider selling gold, that their should definitely be certain restrictions and regulations placed on this process. I’ll get to them soon.

Firstly I want to talk about some basic economics, you know, the crappy subject that many hate but in my honest opinion is what drives everything in this world (though I have studied economics for nearing six years and am about to graduate with my economics degree, so my opinion might be a little biased).

Anyway, Runescape gold is obviously a precious commodity, and rightly so, it takes many hours to earn yourself a meager million pieces of the stuff. Now there are lots of people out there that would love to have more of the stuff, for whatever reason, and are willing to part with a few bucks to get their hands on it but unfortunately Jagex is attempting to regulate the market, well actually they are trying to eliminate the market by making it a banable offense to trade for real world items/money. This very act of regulation is what leaves door open for a black market for Runescape gold with sellers looking to come in and supply the very product that Jagex themselves are unwilling to supply.

Basically what I’m saying is that this is a problem that Jagex has created because they believe that they are maintaining the integrity of the game by banning such trading.

So what would happen if Jagex themselves was to look to sell gold? Well firstly they’d destroy the black market gold sales! Why? Because unlike Jagex, gold merchants have to actually play the game to make the gold or purchase the gold off other players – these are all costs of production, but Jagex on the other hand have an unlimited supply all at no cost giving them lowest cost of production. In addition to this I’m quite sure those looking to buy Runescape gold would be much more willing to pay Jagex a small premium above the prices of that currently offered by black market gold sellers just to ensure that they don’t have the accounts they have spent countless hours developing banned.

Another argument posed is the notion that some people that play Runescape at times can be a bit obsessive and some players investing hundreds of dollars into buying Runescape gold isn’t an unlikely scenario. There have already been reports of WoW (another MMORPG) players spending upwards of $1000 on buying WoW gold. Now I personally think that this is much more of an issue because it is something that Jagex might be liable for. My solution to this problem would be fairly simple, Jagex should just cap the amount of gold they sell to any one individual in any given month, I’d probably argue the cap should be set somewhere between 2M – 5M.

From my business perspective I think this would be an absolute goldmine for Jagex, not to mention would help diversify their currently extremely narrow income sources; currently only consisting of subscription revenues and banner advertising. Now I mean if I were Jagex I’d probably use that extra income to reinvest into the game and its development to counteract any disgruntled uprising as a result of the policy change, not that there would be one if people understood that it was a move designed to destroy the black market gold sales. I mean it’s not like Runescape players don’t believe everything else that Jagex announce as gospel anyway. So I’m sure a nice bit of public relations spin would settle the masses.

So despite Jagex’s fears that it would be the end of the game I’m sure that for the most part the move would be received in a fairly neutral light with the added benefit of all parties being better off, with Jagex being financially better off, players having the ability to buy gold and not running the risk of being banned for buying gold and with Jagex hoping reinvesting funds into creating more features and upgrades players win again. The only losers would be those black market traders, but that would be the objective.

Now the arguments against such a move often center around the thought that allowing players to be able to buy gold would be unfair to those that can’t afford such luxuries. Well my argument to that is there are already players that are affording the luxury of members which is a distinct advantage over the free to play version of the game in regards to raising skills and earning Runescape money.

This brings me to my next point, Runescape isn’t all about money, actually I’d argue quite the opposite no one can see how much money you have in your bank, your are more often than not judged by your stats, and at the end of the day money doesn’t raise you stats for you, everyone has to slog out the man hours raising levels personally. Sure money might make it that bit easier in some skills but that doesn’t negate the fact that they still need to be leveled.
Now some might argue that the influx of gold would result in increased prices for raw products and material in Runescape, and I’d imagine that this influx may well force slight upward pressure on prices, but these upward pressures on prices would also result in the dispersion of gold throughout the Runescape economy, because if prices go up for raw materials then all players selling raw materials would find that they would be earning a better return for their hours spent developing skills like fishing, woodcutting, mining etc. Plus considering the black market for Runescape gold would have been destroyed there would be a large reduction in the use of Chinese gold farmers using autobots to farm gold, making it easier for real players to make a good Runescape living. So whilst introduction of more gold into the Runescape economy would result in slightly inflated prices players should also be earning more as a result.

Now I might be really going out on a limb here, and this suggestion I’m about to make might cause more problems than it solves, but if Jagex were looking to stop inflationary pressure they could potentially look at buying Runescape gold back of players, or potentially trading Runescape gold for membership. That may sound a little crazy but it would solve many of Runescape’s price inflationary pressures, though it might reintroduce the Chinese gold farmer issues, giving gold farmers incentive to exploit Runescape glitches and use Runescape autobots to farm gold.

Another alternative that might also be consider is one that Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has already implemented in their MMORPG, Everquest, which is a the creation of alternative private servers for gamers that want to be able to participate in real world trading. So players of EverQuest are able to buy and sell gold with each other in a SOE managed auction house whilst Sony take a small percentage of the trade value. So Sony is making some good money as well as keeping players happy by providing the service they asked for. According to the surveys and research done involving EverQuest players, for the most part, players are very happy with how the system works and Sony didn’t note any detrimental effects to the game with the introduction of the system.

Now I know that some of these choices may be tough at first but I honestly believe that attempting to fight these market forces (ie – people wanting to buy gold) is naive, people want what they want and attempting to manipulate the market almost always fails and it just makes so much more business sense to take advantage of the general market demand. So all in all, if people want to buy Runescape gold then bloody sell them gold - it costs nothing and they stand to make a fortune from it. Plus I’d like to think that players would generally be better off as well and the major drawbacks taking this option could be largely offset with some good regulation.

Tags: Jagex Solving the Runescape Gold real world Selling Problem