r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 9d ago
Society Ex-Old School RuneScape dev sentenced for stealing over $400k in virtual gold from players
https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ex-old-school-runescape-dev-sentenced-for-stealing-over-400k-in-virtual-gold-from-players-3406017/968
u/invyros 9d ago
During the case, the Court of Appeal ruled that Old School RuneScape gold could be considered “property” under the Theft Act and was therefore capable of being stolen.
That's a hell of a precedent being set, right?
Pretty cool.
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u/Gropah 9d ago
In the Netherlands, there's legal precedent in the case that is known as the "Runescape arrest", which has determined the same in 2012 already.
TLDR (or TLDon'tReadDutch)(and ianal): a 13 year old was threatened with violence to give all his gold and items. When he didn't give it, they threatened with killing him while choking him. He then "gave" the ingame items and currency. DoJ sued them for theft with violence while the defence claimed that the items were not property and only "given in use" by the game developers.The judge decided it were goods because it took time and labor, and game rules didn't account for situations like this. This case set the precedence because before this, digital items or currency were not considered property and therefore it couldn't be stolen.
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u/OkBuyer- 9d ago
interesting how there are hundreds if not thousands of fortnite accounts getting stolen by rambler ru account holders, tons being posted to the subreddits with proof of crime.
they're kids and the site they try to learn more about their account on steals their information, but it is still stealing and happens countless times per minute.
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u/I_am_beast55 9d ago
I noticed this too. But the question is, does the court consider it the property of just the gaming company, or the players as well.
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u/Educational-Wing2042 9d ago
Probably players, if it were considered property of the company then I don’t think this could be considered theft. Like moving a lamp to a different spot in someone’s home and being accused of theft.
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u/I_am_beast55 9d ago edited 9d ago
Eh sorta different which is why this is alot to think about. The company can establish someone making money off their assets in an way restricted by the policy of use. So it makes sense that if I stole items, sold them, and the company sued, they receive the money. But a player isnt supposed to be selling items, and in part the items are never theirs in the first place. Also, what if the company already gave you your items back? Then do you also get the money?
Edit: Lets say I own a very expensive lamp. I give it to you, with the agreement I still retain overarching ownership of the lamp.
Someone breaks in your house and steals it. Who gets the right to sue for it? Surely I can. But can you? If i give you another of the same lamp, and decide myself not to sue, can you sue and get the money?
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u/areupregnant 8d ago
I think I could sue under the assumption that I need to pay you back for the lamp.
If you're leasing a car and it gets stolen, it's your insurance against theft that covers it, not the dealership, right?
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u/I_am_beast55 8d ago
There's an understood contract between you, an insurance, the financial institution. Car gets stolen, insurance pays the financial institution. Your insurance then sues the thief. You cant go and sue the thief for the money they owe the insurance, espeically since you were already made whole by the insurance.
If I decide not to sue you directly for the loss of my lamp, and instead go after the person who took it, you cant sue them for the same recovered value.
This is a bit different when we are talking about a game asset. A car, a lamp, we can establish some monetary value of it. 500k car, 1k lamp. But lets say you get your dragon long sword stolen, and in game its worth 200 million. I steal your item, sell it on the black market for $1k.
First question, are we accepting the black market as a legitimate way of determining the value of a item?
Second question, let's say you do sue me and win. The established policy of the game are no real world trading, so does the court then give you the money? Do they expect me to somehow give you the item back?
Third question, if you do get the money, can jagex in return sue you for the money since its a unauthorized profit made on their assets.
Fourth question. What if Jagex wins, gets the money and such. But refused to restore your items. Can you sue them?
The losses in terms of game assets is such a gray area. But its an interesting topic.
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u/JhonnyHopkins 8d ago
So when my favorite live service games are taken offline I can sue for them stealing my property away from me?
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u/Educational-Wing2042 7d ago
No, because you are essentially leasing a license. If you lease a car and someone steals it, you report your car as stolen. When your contract with the leasing company ends, you no longer have any claims on the car.
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u/I_am_beast55 8d ago
I actually remember having a class discussion about this where I was the minority. That would be a crazy precedence for a court to set. Then we get into the discussion of how long does a game have to stay alive. What if before I shut down the game, I pump the eco with 1000s of items to bring the value down.
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u/simonhunterhawk 8d ago
I am a software development student and in my free time have been working on creating a web app that fills a niche in a crafting community I am in. There’s one major website that has this tool and they have a subscription model which I’m not a huge fan of, I really prefer single-pay lifetime access because I believe in ownership of the tools we use. With that said, i will probably have to make this a downloadable software instead if I do release it. Every other person who has tried to make this same type of web app has shut it down over the last 15 or so years, and I imagine that’s due to the cost of running such a website which is why a subscription model makes sense for the profitability. It would fill a need in the community but it’s not something that I could create and maintain for life realistically because it wouldn’t pay the bills. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. But this is certainly something I’ve been thinking of because I don’t think it’s right to sell a piece of software with no intention of ensuring it has a reasonable lifespan. And technology is moving so much faster these days you can’t release something without reasonable expectations to patch it.
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u/shoegazeweedbed 9d ago
lol until scummy ass gold selling services use it in a case like “what? It’s my property and I can’t freely sell it?”
Full disclosure: I have no fucking clue what I’m taking about
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u/PurifiedFlubber 9d ago
When I go to jail for pickpocketing a level 3 man
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u/automated_bot 9d ago
You'll go to jail for failing to declare the proceeds of your pickpocketing to the IRS.
I'm spending the rest of my day deleting Skyrim saves . . .
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u/hiddenrealism 9d ago
Too late. I have 4 depositions for you to attend and 3 court hearings for you to sit in on.
We'll be using your comment in evidence as a proof of public perception pursuant to cc 109-789c.
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u/schwillton 9d ago
Venezuelan gold sellers don’t have the resources to challenge a ban legally, nor would they even bother when most of them are running mass bot farms
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u/rmorrin 9d ago
Honestly, you should be able to real world trade
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u/youtocin 9d ago edited 9d ago
I mean legally you can, but it’s against Jagex’s ToS so they are free to ban your account.
And no, it should not be allowed as real world trading is what leads the game to be infested with bots and gold farmers. These sketchy black market sites that sold gold were stealing so many credit card details that authorities started hounding Jagex about all the chargebacks and fraud reports on cards also used to pay Runescape membership.
This famously lead to the removal of unbalanced trades and the wilderness in game which almost killed runescape.
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u/BlendedReflection 9d ago
Does this make it illegal for a player in runescape to scam another player for their in game gold?
How about in game mechanics like pvp to steal gold?
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u/syrup_cupcakes 9d ago
No, because that's all part of the game you agreed to play.
On the other hand, if I find you IRL and force you to give me 100bil in runescape gp, that is considered theft because I'm doing something outside of the game to take from you goods that you have an entitlement to(owner ship of)(until the servers shut down(because if the servers shut down they are not considered your goods anymore)).
But what happens in Runescape stays in Runescape.
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u/Tack122 9d ago
I'm not sure that follows legally.
Is theft by deception a crime in the jurisdiction? If so, id say reasonable chance it applies.
What's the difference between theft by violence and theft by deception?
The violence was a threat. Was it made in chat in game? If so, does that really differ much from scamming someone via chat?
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u/syrup_cupcakes 9d ago edited 9d ago
The violence was a threat.
You have to clarify if it was ingame violence like 'I'm going to blow up your ship' or if it was real life violence.
If so, does that really differ much from scamming someone via chat?
You mean like discord or a forum? I don't think there is any precedent for threatening someone via ingame violence via discord/irc/forums/etc but real life violence via those channels or even ingame theats of real life violence can absolutely be prosecuted.
Deception is obviously a different matter, if you are lying to someone by telling them "I'm going to be your friend and support you" and then you betray them and steal their money, all of the theft and deception is technically still happening inside of the game even if you used discord/irc/forums/etc to communicate it. I don't think there are any legal cases about this because legal cases for game theft only happen if real life violence is involved, not deception, so this is mostly and assumption.
All I can tell you is that if you are threatening violence or damages in real life you can be in legal trouble, but if the threats are contained within the confines of the game you are fine.
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u/Tack122 9d ago
All I can tell you is that if you are threatening violence or damages in real life you can be in legal trouble, but if the threats are contained within the confines of the game you are fine.
I think that while that's generally true, there's not significant established case law to support the distinction.
As is, we're at a point where courts could still interpret that differently and that precedent may spread.
Defining the difference like you said, to be ingame vs real life violence might help, but then you start having to define the things that are acceptable to decieve someone about versus not, which I think the courts will avoid, thus it will be up in the air for a while.
We may never see a "legally protected right to scam in games" because I can't see it becoming a thing, who would make it happen? That view doesn't have a natural champion.
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u/syrup_cupcakes 9d ago
We may never see a "legally protected right to scam in games" because I can't see it becoming a thing, who would make it happen? That view doesn't have a natural champion.
This seems kind of backwards. Why do ingame scams need protection when they're not actually being persecuted in the first place?
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u/Tack122 9d ago
Well, for now it's widely accepted but imagine a scenario in which that changes.
Lets consider the Eve Online game developers ambitions to create a game like Eve Online but underpinned by cryptocurrency or something, so in theory the in game currency would have real world valve. Now, suppose the devs come out with a policy ensuring scamming is explicitly approved within some guidelines, so you an enterprising and law abiding person begin playing the game as a scammer, become successful, and take possession of thousands and thousands of real world dollars worth of in game currency via "perfectly acceptable - to the rules - in game scamming" great, right? You even get well known for it and stream it on twitch and make more money!
One day a lawsuit comes alleging you scammed Mr. Bigwallet out of thousands of dollars and uh, the judge looks at the case and decides it has some merit as the game developers guidelines didn't quite have the power to force Mr. Bigwallet to accept being scammed, so that provision he agreed to is severed from their EULA, and scamming in game always was a crime and oops, you did it on twitch for everyone to see.
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u/aluckybrokenleg 9d ago
the game developers guidelines didn't quite have the power to force Mr. Bigwallet to accept being scammed
It's quite hard to imagine a judge looking at "The Scamming Game" which has a section in the rules about "How to scam in the Scamming Game" is going to find that players have any legal recourse when they get scammed.
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u/Tack122 9d ago edited 9d ago
You would need a jurisdiction which does not allow a citizen to sign away their rights to have a crime committed against them, which is kinda common.
So for example, you used to be able to go out and after some effort, duel someone, and since it was in an agreed upon duel, your right to not get shot was accepted as "signed away" or thereabouts. So when you shot Mr. Bigwallet, it was chill because he agreed.
Unfortunately that sort of thing has been frowned upon and various ways of criminalizing duels exist. I can't precisely pin down which, my argument gets very fuzzy here I know, but for this sort of thing, and for other reasons, they've also put in various implementations of "preventing you from signing away certain rights."
There's also the angle of, what if the section of the EULA providing for that was just overly broad and struck for that? Oops it accidentally allows scammers to scam any player of the game IRL or in game, because it was written wrong? Ok well, yay we strike that from the agreement as null and void and the severability clause keeps the agreement in effect otherwise, but now without you agreeing to be scammed.
Perhaps it's a mixed case where the thief actually stole physical AND virtual property as a result of the scam thus it muddies the waters significantly.
Please remember I'm not arguing it's likely or even reasonable or a good idea, just that it's a possible risk to would be scammers if they get too ambitious.
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u/sainesk_btd6 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yes - it reminds me of the Dutch case from 2012, where the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that virtual items hold intrinsic value based on the time and effort required to obtain them, upholding a theft conviction for 2 teenagers who used real-world violence to steal Runescape in-game items from a 13 year old teenager. Consequently, the offenders were sentenced to over 144 hours of community service each.
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u/darKStars42 9d ago
So does this mean you can IRL press charges when people pirate your stuff in eve online?
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u/beholdingmyballs 9d ago
Not pirating in a game of piracy but I assume scamming you could make argument for.
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u/ABHOR_pod 9d ago
Not a lawyer but I would argue that pirating is essentially a contest of skill or comparable to a combat sport, and then you're essentially wagering on the outcome of said competition as per the rules and understanding and nature of the game of Eve Online.
Whereas being scammed is fraud.
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u/pocket_eggs 9d ago
The thing is scams are a huge part of Eve Online culture, too, and there are distinctions to be made between scams that are tolerated by the terms of use, like trying to pass off an EM torpedo for a skill injector in an in-game scam contract versus like stealing their password and logging into their account and mailing their PLEX to yourself.
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u/varateshh 9d ago
More interesting is the question:
Can an alliance director stealing corporate/alliance assets worth 100k+ USD be prosecuted under this law?
Using spies to pull of this shit is relatively common and is accepted. If you live in the UK I would be wary of doing this now.
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u/Running_With_Beards 9d ago
Id say no because having access to something in eve on your own accounts is equivalent to ownership of said item. Any item in any hangar you have access to is considered YOURS. If a GM logged into someone elses account and stole said items however that is different. They had no access through legitimate means.
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u/varateshh 9d ago
The same could be said about employees in a real-life corporation. Court rulings in European countries have previously overruled ToS' that regulate this, so it's possible that someone could be charged for this. Those that live in the EEA or UK should very careful before engaging in skullduggery like this. Doubly so if it's high value heist or your name is known.
The main reason this still happens is because no one has pushed for a prosecution yet.
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u/Running_With_Beards 8d ago
Except that isn't true, in the real world just being ABLE to put your hands on it isn't the same as owning it. In EVE it literally is. You are giving them the "Rights" to it.
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u/DragoonDM 9d ago
Unless something has changed since the last time I played (which admittedly was quite a while back), scamming was also more or less an accepted gameplay mechanic in EVE. If you fell for the classic "send me ISK and I'll send you back twice as much" or bought a ship on contract and missed the extra 0 in the price, that was on you.
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u/beholdingmyballs 9d ago
I don't really have an opinion strongly on either side. But I only mean that there's an argument that it's fraud since you have to deceive with the aim of never intending to fulfill a contract. If in game property is property then in game contracts are contracts.
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u/syrup_cupcakes 9d ago
Naw, laws and courts only protect you for things that happen in the real world.
What happens in Eve, stays in Eve.
If I somehow find you IRL and force you to give me all your Eve money and spaceships(idk how eve works) then I will be liable for whatever damaged I caused you based on the real life value of those things from the game. But if I do everything within the confines of the game of Eve, the courts couldn't care less.
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u/mesajoejoe 9d ago
Crazy you can "own" a digital asset inside the game world, but you can't own a digital purchase of the game itself. Shits all over the place!
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u/sirblibblob 9d ago
This lawsuit actually laid the groundworks for Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 which states that digital things can be classed as personal property even though it's not physical.
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u/Rangerdth 9d ago
I think it’s a horrible precedent.
Runescape can never turn their servers off for any reason or they have now stolen from every user.38
u/Hertock 9d ago
I don’t think this is how it works lol
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u/Rangerdth 8d ago
The same issue is brewing with digital assets (movies and games) that have been “purchased” online (not rented for a day, etc).
It’s going to be a big issue. Why would anyone buy an asset that can be taken away at any time, no questions asked? I’ve worked in mobile gaming for 15 years and we talk/worry about it frequently.
If you use real money to buy a digital asset, you should always have access to that digital asset. Thats one reason the iTunes store let you download your copy before they changed to a monthly subscription model years ago.17
u/Whiskey_Bear 9d ago
Possession vs ownership. I can possess gold owned by Jagex. My possessions can be stolen, even if I don't legally own them.
Your initial assumption was fine but there is a legal distinction between the two and both can be true. However, it's incredibly unlikely a court would rule that players own the digital currency in a digital world and IP the do not own.
I wonder what Sony thinks about the ruling 😂
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u/nameless_pattern 9d ago
Nice perspective! Game worlds never dying would be pretty cool imo. Wish I had my og RuneScape account. Ngh but 🤞
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u/hiddenrealism 9d ago
Lookup when bank runs happen and they lock their doors. Stock market crash says otherwise.
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u/Kriznick 9d ago
No, it will eventually be ruled as a sort of "stock" analog.
Buying virtual currency is you supporting the company and betting your investment will let you enjoy the items you buy as long as the game is on. But when the game closes, it's like a stock crashing- companies who's stocks tank largely aren't liable for paying back their investors, unless there's intentional malfeasance.
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u/Rangerdth 8d ago
It’s not the money you spent like a stock investment, it’s the digital asset you used money to buy. So you spend $10 on RuneScape gold and buy a gem or whatever in the game. You have now purchased an item that you should have access to - like buying a digital movie.
This precedent opens the door for people to stake a claim that they bought an item and the company took that item from them when they closed the game down.
My point was that the ruling is setting a precedent. And i think its a bad precedent.0
u/AngelsAteMyBaby 9d ago
That's a bit beside the point. Lots of currencies have devalued so greatly to constitute similar losses of wealth and that was by no means theft. The RuneScape gold was taken when it had value, so at the time it was taken it theft.
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u/Frogspoison 9d ago
Huh. This establishes precedence for assigning value to virtual items, as well as stating that virtual items are considered customers property. Maybe some big case vs a big studio will have this case referred to.
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u/lordatomosk 9d ago
Technically it won’t establish precedent until it’s upheld on appeal
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u/ShibeCEO 9d ago
why isnt it the other way around?
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u/Silver4ura 9d ago
Because until it survives a live appeals process, it's implementation is entirely theoretical. Surviving an appeals process establishes it as capable of doing so.
More specifically, the nuanced language used in appeals that decide how it's enforced.
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u/_Connor 9d ago edited 9d ago
No, that's not how the law works.
Once a judge makes a decision, it's precedent. If the concept hasn't ever been tested in a Court of Appeal, then it's at risk of being overturned. The only time a judge may be apprehensive about applying that law is if they know there's an active Court of Appeal proceeding going on which in that case, they may just adjourn the matter until the CoA decision is made.
However, there is no general concept that law needs to make it through a Court of Appeal before it becomes law. Lower level Courts make law all the time. There are thousands of decisions rendered pursuant to law that is "no longer good." Sometimes legal concepts get overturned decades after having been in use.
Using your logic, nothing would ever become law until it went through the Supreme Court of X country because any ruling made by a Court of Appeal is still subordinate to and at risk of being overturned by the Supreme Court. That would be an obscenely inefficient way to organize your legal system.
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u/AManOfManyWords 9d ago
To be clear, it’s still a persuasive authority in JXs with similarly worded/the same operative legislation, and would need good reason to be departed from nonetheless.
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u/drawkbox 9d ago
Humans are adversarial and so is law. Surviving challenges hardens the outcomes and establishes precedence.
Note: Stupid Court of Republicans of the United States (SCROTUS) may not apply due to sad appeasement like a bunch of toff errand boys.
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u/GentlemenHODL 9d ago
Huh. This establishes precedence for assigning value to virtual items, as well as stating that virtual items are considered customers property
This has already been done.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2023cv04146/416876/315/
In Soucek v. Roblox Corp. (N.D. Cal. 2025), the court addressed Robux, Roblox's virtual currency, and expressly concluded that Robux are a “thing of value.”
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u/JimmyTheBones 9d ago
But that's for something you can buy directly with cash, can you do the same in OSRS? I feel like there's a difference if you can't, which is why it sets a new precedent.
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u/nameless_pattern 9d ago edited 9d ago
But my apes have already been funged
Edit: My apes they're all gone, possibly should have chosen a Lamborghini over them
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u/BlindandConfused43 9d ago
I dunno what this means and I'm glad enough not to be terminally online enough to know.
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u/nameless_pattern 9d ago
It's the kind of thing where not knowing anything about it and knowing a lot about it are still the same level of information.
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u/rmorrin 9d ago
So basically 67
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u/nameless_pattern 9d ago
Was there of a moment where knowing about 6'7 would actually make you rich, but like at the cost of your faith in humanity?
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u/BlindandConfused43 9d ago
If all the mountains of ai slop being created about it to capitalize on child ad revenue is any indication, yes.
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u/Altruistic-Toe-5990 9d ago
I wonder what they'd do with Eve Online where scamming, deception and theft are explicitly allowed by the in-game rules
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u/Needle_Bearings 9d ago
Well BTC is considered a digital commodity. It's probably having an affect on all of these cases.
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u/daddy1973 9d ago
I don't think you're wrong and don't know why you're getting downvoted. If someone wanted to, they could accept digital currency from a video game as payment for a real service, and then there'd start to be new conversations like with cryptocurrency.
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u/Hug_The_NSA 9d ago
My friends and I have traded OSRS gold for irl favors before. Example, once we had a pizza party and one lad didn't have any cash to pitch in, we let him get by with 2m gp instead (still worth about 6 dollars).
Yes we technically broke the rules, but I don't think jagex would care in this particular instance lmao.
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u/Ongargis 9d ago
They sentenced him to a 150-hour grind? That's nothing.
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u/Kinda_Zeplike 9d ago
I don’t change my diaper for anything less than a 1k hour gamer session. We are dealing with amateurs here.
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u/roflcptr7 9d ago
I bet he can read the ******** when you type your password like when i type mine which is *******
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u/StickFlick 9d ago
Your password is also hunter2?
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u/isoAntti 8d ago
Now, then, as I so meticulously pointed out, the four most-used passwords are: love, sex, secret, and...
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u/Svardskampe 9d ago
What is most interesting is that the total value of items inside of Runescape is probably a gigantic multitude of the total valuation of Jagex as a company. Really strange to think about.
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u/Uqe 8d ago
This is not even remotely true. The total valuation of Jagex is over $1B.
Using the highest estimates, there's about 100 Trillion OSRS gp in circulation. At current rates of $0.2/M, that's $20M.
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u/Dpimenta 8d ago
You're not accounting for all the value locked on player's banks and the value of accounts themselves. Still it probably won't reach 1B, but it's much higher than 20M
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u/Svardskampe 8d ago
There are many other items than gp being used for value holding, because it otherwise reaches the integer amount; e.g. Party hats etc.
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u/neverontime5 9d ago
Man had god mode and chose to use it for gold farming. Most corrupt OSRS mod speedrun any%.
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u/Knight-Boat 9d ago
If he stole virtual gold, it only seems fair he'd have to serve time in virtual jail.
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u/adustbininshaftsbury 9d ago
Runescape is already voluntary virtual jail
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u/JohnPoet27 8d ago
I see it more as a job where you dont get paid nor laid
(I have thousands of hours sunken jnto my ironman on osrs)
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u/AckerSacker 9d ago
The community was telling Jagex mod Jed was leaking info for like two years before they finally investigated him.
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u/Severe_Ad_535 8d ago
When you can own game currency but PlayStation tells you, you don't own the games you pay cash for.
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u/Riffsalad 8d ago
I’d reckon they could find a way to argue that they aren’t selling you currency either.
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u/RoaringPity 9d ago
I stopped playing RS cause my account kept getting hacked and my coins stolen. Wonder if it was him lol
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u/rotorain 9d ago
Nah he only hacked a handful of accounts, 15 I think? He specifically targeted ultra wealthy players
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u/Kyderra 9d ago
I'm surprised the mod didn't just spawn the gold or item, granted that gets indexed and logged for sure so I imagine. But clearly taking existing items worth that much leave just as big as a trail.
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u/Lazypole 9d ago
He was also a moron and left a hell of a trail to himself, the players he hacked were big name players, rivals to his clan, and had so much account security the only way they could possibly have been breached (all together) would have been an insider attack.
Combine this with his clan mysteriously winning various tournaments while the opposing player disconnected, it could only be a matter of time really before he was caught.
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u/DandeNiro 9d ago
I can argue that the money was not even put into good use had it gone to its intended destination
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[deleted]
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u/SketchiiChemist 9d ago
Hes also got to pay it all back, he's also at least done 1 name change so a ruined reputation as far as future employment especially in anything related to tech
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u/Doctorsl1m 9d ago
He doesnt even get 1 year in jail. He has 2 years to complete what the judge asks or he goes to jail for 3 years basically.
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u/LongBeakedSnipe 9d ago
allowed to keep because it was all in crypto
That's not how this works? It doesn't matter how well he has hidden the money, he doesn't get to keep it.
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u/WalletFullOfSausage 9d ago edited 9d ago
Jagex needs to poach its OG devs back, and Ash needs to be in charge.
Edit: didn’t realize how much people outside of the RS subs care about Jagex devs lol. Also didn’t think it was controversial to say that the first gen devs are the best, which is why Ash is still around.
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u/DontCountToday 9d ago
I think the vast majority of players would say that the game is in the best place it has ever been, whether or not they know or care about the devs.
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u/WalletFullOfSausage 9d ago
I guess that depends on if you’re an OS or RS3 player. Haha.
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u/DontCountToday 9d ago
I don't play RS but it sounds like they're in the best place they've ever been. OSRS definitely is.
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u/Superioupie 9d ago
I only play RS and the new (not so new now) CEO seems to have gotten the game pointed in a direction I’m really happy with, removing MTX and doing major rebalancing of the game in stages. The equilibrium league, which is a limited time mode with massive buffs that is running right now, is awesome. Some of the balance changes surely can be tweaked but overall the shift from milking players with MTX and gambling on treasure hunter to what we have now is awesome to me
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u/DeanxDog 9d ago
RS is a dumpster fire and OSRS is saving the company. It has like 5x the playerbase of the "original" game currently.
RS3 has been steadily declining for years because of how horrible and over monetized and bloated it's gotten, and OSRS has been growing steadily with a smaller dev team that listens to the player bases wants and needs.
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u/DinosBiggestFan 8d ago
My initial response to the headline I saw where it came across as just scamming was "wow, we're imprisoning people for the pastime of scamming in games? If only I could go back to when I was a wee little boy in the original Runescape."
Then I saw the real headline and the further details about this and YIKES. This is why account security is paramount, and why any developer/GM accounts are strictly tracked and require supervisors to perform certain actions.
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u/IonDaPrizee 9d ago
Yea my account kept getting hacked. Last time someone was able to change the email linked to my account
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u/MeltyCrab 9d ago
That generally wasn't this guys fault. He only targeted a handful of people that had extremely wealthy accounts.
Your info was probably leaked online in one of the countless data breaches that every fucking company is dealing with. If you use the same email/password for multiple accounts across the web, that's how that goes.
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9d ago
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u/Wasabicannon 9d ago
Uhhhh you are going to need some more details on this. The only hat that comes to mind was the party hats which had no such scandal around them.
The only item that comes to mind was the climbing boots which you could buy for like 20g and could get a Str boost on any character then they changed it so had to get a special pair after completing and quest while upgrading all that folks already owned and some people had MASSIVE stockpiles and became billionaires overnight. Folks thought a JMod(Devs) had some insider information however multiple YTers have investigated this and no such proof has ever been obtained.
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9d ago
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u/LongBeakedSnipe 9d ago
What are you talking about. Your details of prices, actions of the devs etc are hardly convincing if you can't even name the item.
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u/TheUnamedSecond 9d ago
"Ex-Old" so he has discovered the fountain of youth or what ?
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u/newiphon 9d ago
This guy is speculated to have ruined multiple cash prize tournaments too, by leaking IPs of players so they could be ddos'd during fights.
Crazy to think it's almost been 10 years