OK I just wanted to clarify a quick point before I get into the crust of this article. This site is in no way illegal or against Jagex rules, they just don’t like some of the advertising on it. Also, the sites you visit don’t in anyway endanger your Runescape account, only what you do in the game of Runescape can endanger your account.

OK a little over a month ago Jagex made a very controversial news announcement in there Runescape Bots and Real World Trading news item in which they said this:

Finally, we have noticed some 3rd party sites, which call themselves ‘fansites’, but then advertise black market trading sites. This will no longer be tolerated. By running such advertising these sites are directly supporting these gangs, and are thus causing the botting problems they then complain about! We don’t consider sites that encourage our players to break the rules and endanger their own users to be ‘fansites’. (i.e. They’re advertising things to their users, which, if the advertising works, will serve to get their users banned!) We consider them cheat sites, and they will be treated accordingly. True fans of the game don’t encourage cheating!

This brings us to the last point. HOW YOU CAN HELP! You can help us by:

1. Boycott any corrupt ‘fansites’ which advertise RuneScape gold for sale. There are plenty of genuine fansites out there who don’t support cheating in this way, and we fully support those sites. Use those ones instead. Also, don’t advertise, link to, or talk about any of these corrupt fansites. Obviously, if they stop supporting cheating, you can start using them again.

So when this was first announced there was a big commotion on a number of Runescape sites, there was even an article posted over at RuneHead, here and here, both of which I found reasonably interesting and with the first probably arguing the opposite of how I feel about the issue, on the side of - that sites should be doing everything they can to comply with Jagex’s wishes. Though the second article’s argument is a lot more congruent to my own.

Anyway, soon after the announcement of boycotting sites with Runescape gold selling I made a response to one of my staff member’s questions of what I was planning to do. The general premise of my statements revolved around the notion that this Runescape gold selling and real world trading coupled with the Runescape cheat ads is Jagex’s problem not the owner’s of Runescape related site’s problem and it’s a real low blow to push the blame onto Runescape fan site owners and not actively seek constructive resolutions to the core problem.

Whilst my sites were never made with the intention of making money, I’m definitely not adverse to selling moral advertising to the highest bidder, and unfortunately Jagex aren’t Offering Runescape Sites an Alternative Source of Income nor are they operating a Good Business Model for Runescape in my honest opinion, nor are they acknowledging that it was their own short coming which Created Runescape Fan Sites. Here is my comments to the staff members of the sites we run:

At this stage I’m just going to wait and let the dust settle - thus far I haven’t seen any change in the advertising that is on any of the major Runescape fansites, not to mention there are a significant percentage of free hosted Runescape sites, like InvisionFree forums, that don’t actually get a say in what sort of advertising is placed on their sites and I’m quietly confident the guys over at InvisionFree, and services life them, supplying the forums don’t give a rats about what Jagex thinks about Runescape gold ads or Runescape cheats.

So with that in mind I, at least for the time being, am willing to wait and see what happens in the greater Runescape community. Personally I don’t think anything is going to change.

I mean if you look at the other major Runescape fan sites like Tip it, Sals, Runescape Realm & Zybez etc, none of them have taken the bait, plus Jagex makes out like it is something we can just switch on and off - it isn’t, there are limits to what we are able to do in regards to Google Ads, and the people run these gold selling companies aren’t idiots, I mean how hard is it for them to make new ads to replace the old ones that we have blacklisted, or setup more FREE Google AdWords accounts.

Long story short, us fan site owners can’t stop this problem, but Jagex is asking us to “try” even though it will ultimately be a futile attempt costing fan site owners thousands without offering them Alternative Sources of Income. Now I personally think there are a number of avenues Jagex has either not considered or have chosen to not opt for that would result in a much more positive resolution to the situation - Solving the Runescape Gold Selling Problem.

So what have Jagex achieved out of all this commotion? I’d imagine not a lot other than further alienate Runescape fan site owners, but at least they are consistent - Jagex has always badmouthed fan sites! Jagex have never linked to a fan site, they have ALWAYS told people to avoid fan sites, and they have done everything possible to draw as many people away from fan sites, including making rules against people even talking about them in Runescape.

So forgive me if I don’t care much for Jagex’s approval, I mean it’s not like us fan site owners/users have ever got it.

Those were my thoughts a couple of weeks ago and for the most part they remain pretty much the same today. I think Jagex really needs to sit back and reassess the issue rather than trying the same old tactics that seems to have not only been ineffective, but has also resulted in Upward Trend of Buying Runescape Gold. Maybe it is time they looked at other alternatives to Solving the Runescape Gold Selling Problem.

Tags: Runescape Gold Selling and Cheat Ads, Solving the Runescape Gold Selling Problem, Upward Trend of Buying Runescape Gold.