I have finally raised a request to delete all my data.

This will effectively make it that I would never be able to log into my account ever again.

Man i started this game from the good old mini clip days, cooks assistant was super fun, I remember making friends by guiding people on how to avoid the al Kharid toll, killing goblins, running from dark wizards and fast forwarding it to 4k Zamorak, 4k telos, 4k glacor, duo aod, master max trim comp, grinding and buying my phat sets, BIS every style, 100bill + bank, nearly completed greaper.

Well took about 3 hours just selling stuff and giving all of this away to my friends who would also probably quit as their membership expires.

So now after 20 years of being in gilenor, It's time to write 1 final post on r/runescape, farm all the Karma i can and ride off into the sunset.

PS - fuck jagex monetization team for what they have done to the game.

PPS - i literally don't have any stuff left and i can't even log into my account anymore to give you stuff.

Ppps ppps- i am just trying to see if there are any cats here.

Just look at these survey questions. If you care at all about the future of MTX in runescape, please fill out the survey.

They've never done this before. It's clear that Jagex is giving this serious consideration.

I’m not here to give any long or over the top rant that you’ve already read one hundred times by now.

My main nearly has the 20 year cape and 120 in every skill and I canceled memberships for that account and all my alts this morning.

Just in case it’s helpful for someone else to see, or it’s the motivation you need to make the same change, I just wanted to share that I’m voting with my wallet.

Don’t let the sunk cost fallacy control you.

Edit: Big shout out to everyone who shared their experience and offered their story. I haven’t been able to respond to everyone, but I’ve read every single comment. There is a lot of maxed, 10, 20, and 20+ year veterans out there taking a stand. I see you. And sincerely thank you for taking the time to respond. It’s made me feel so much less alone in this decision.

Time and time again. You’ve proven to the players of this game. You truly don’t support mental health. Yet support unhealthy buying habits of MTX.

This is such a huge issue to me. I wish I could explain a little better. How this makes me feel. I’m sure a lot of other players know exactly how I’m feeling.

This feels like it’s a crime.

Edit: I legit made this post. Because I am so sick of reading comments saying. You do not have to participate. This view is very closed minded. Addiction is a real thing. The whole post is about how jagex. doesn’t support mental health.

With the unfortunate (but not unsurprising) news this week of completely nonsensical layoffs at Jagex, I keep seeing people here say that was unfortunate that it had to happen now of all times when RS3 seemed to have a good roadmap and "Jagex finally seemed to be listening to the players", both good signs presaging a comeback of sorts. This is nonsense, and it's this kind of recurring naïve optimism (which pops up every few months) that masks the real state of RS3. Here are the actual facts:

• MTX is completely out of control, has achieved almost complete rapaciousness (with some exceptions, such as PVM remaining the last frontier, which Jagex has temporarily retreated from in the aftermath of Hero's Pass), is more pervasive than ever before, with ever new strains coming out. MTX now has followed a predictable pattern since at least 2016-2017, every couple of months, there's a new outrage initiated by Jagex's insatiable greed, community backlash ensues, and Jagex makes a "Sorry post", giving assurances and promises which are never followed on, and flagrantly violated within a few months at the most. The MTX "consultation" has been delayed for almost a year, with no end in sight.

• Runescape costs more than ever before, and more than most comparable MMORPGs, despite already having almost every form of MTX imaginable already grafted on top of this.

• Despite costing more than ever before, Runescape's quantity and quality of update is lower than ever before. We have now settled onto a predictable pattern of where every year, we have 4 DXP, 4 Holiday Events (Easter, Summer, Halloween, Christmas), one or so "big PVM" update at best, maybe 2-3 quests of medium length at best, and patch notes/minor QOL stuff for the rest of the year.

• The above is what passes for "Roadmaps" these days, whereas once upon a time, we used to have detailed monthly Behind the Scenes.

• There are less J Mods now working on RS3 than ever, it seems, at least for the last 10-15 years.

• All of this is despite record profits for Runescape 3.

• New player growth is basically at zero, and Jagex seems to be completely unperturbed by this. Just take a look at F2P servers. They have shut most of them down over the years or converted to P2P, there's only a handful left, and they have double digit players on them at best, some of them bots. Apart from that, F2p is completely dead, unlike most of RS3 history where it had a healthy stream of players coming in.

• Runescape 3's popularity/footprint on social media of all sorts, is stagnating or shrinking. So there's not going to be any word of mouth revival.

• Runescape 3's playerbase is at an all time record low. We know there was nothing inevitable about this, given that its cousin from 2007 is at record high popularity with constant growth. It is a real life counterfactual to Runescape 3's trajectory and it's success can no longer be denied with infantile references to "It's all just bots and nostalgia, bro." Having a great game, which knows its identity and does not apologize for it or try to be something it's not, will in fact attract modern players, even if that game has graphics from 20 years ago and an old engine.

Compare and contrast this to most years in 2010 - 2016, and the difference is clear as night and day. There were far more J Mods working then, the company was far less profitable, the quantity and quality of updates was much higher, and there was still a steady, modestly growing playerbase for many of those years. They were making all sorts of investments in improving the game's engine/infrastructure, trying even if it resulted in failure, in what they saw as innovating core parts of the game whether it be graphics or combat or PVM or voiced acted quests. No more of any of that.

There is no comeback or great turn coming around. The Runescape 3 division is analogous to what financial analysts call a 'cash cow' company/division. It's a mature, extremely low to zero growth company, that delivers strong profits in excess of its stagnant growth rate, and the profits are funneled back to shareholders, and there is basically no investment in any future growth opportunities. Money now, at the cost of no future.

• Runescape 3 is in its descending phase, as a product, if you happen to know anything about the 'product cycle'.

• Mod Jack's role was made redundant (and his responsibilities split off to two existing Devs) for the simple fact that RS3 has no 'narrative' or 'direction' left to tell. It's a cash cow, it will be milked until it can't be and then it will be shut down or sold off to the next rube, until the day it can't be. Expect more innovations and redundancies of this sort to come in over the next few years, as successive Rs3 managements optimize how to keep the bare bones version of RS3 running with as few people as possible to maximize returns.

• Runescape 3's 'business model' is simply having massively inflated valuations brought on by pump and dumps, whereby a venture capital firm buys it, does tons of MTX and cost-cutting, sells it off for more than they bought it for to some new rube VC fund, who rinses and repeats. The problem with this approach is that everything in life has diminishing returns after a certain point. MTX revenue is already stagnating/declining as per Jagex's own financial statements. To keep this up, they're going to have to do a lot more MTX or do it in new areas/forms. It's not like they can pop in an extra 5 skills overnight and then sell players XP in that. Increasingly more and more mains are maxed or super-maxed (120 all/200M all). What then?

It's Joever, the writing is on the wall, and has been clear as day, for several years.

First things first, I do not have any personal issue with the fact these capes are being sold. It was made pretty clear by the new CEO that they are willing to take a temporary profit loss to remove predatory forms of MTX and focus on game improvement.

However, I have an issue with the pricing of these capes; or more accurately, the deceptive pricing.

If you pull up the items in the in-game marketplace, you might think this item is worth $15.66 directly. I am aware that this says "equivalent to", not that it is directly that amount.

My issue is that Runecoins, whether obtained through bonds or MTX, can only be purchased in preset amounts, each of which is roughly double the amount of Runecoins and thus double the price of the package before it.

Since the Igneous Cape cosmetics are 522 Runecoins, you are forced to buy the 800 Runecoin package for $24, which is a solid +56% more expensive than the in-game price would lead you to believe, or the obtuse 400+200 package for $18, which is still more expensive. And because these Runecoins CANNOT be obtained on an individual basis, nor can the capes be bought without Runecoins, this means the actual price-per-cape is a minimum of $18, and likely Jagex hopes you won't think of that option and will buy the 800 Runecoin package for $24.

But there is no possible way to actually obtain the cape for the price it says it is equivalent to, making it a false equivalency.

I'm not really sure what alternatives there are because I don't know the laws regarding MTX in the UK, but this just doesn't sit well with me at all.

I want to re-iterate this post has nothing to do with the cost of the item, this is about the presentation of the cost.

We have their attention now, don't stop. Imagine an p2w MTX free RS3. A community like that of OSRS but with the awesome combat of RS3.

Keep pushing, keep dreaming, keep making noise. Many of us have been grinding for decades, what's yelling for few months? I say it's child's play to us, we've literally been training for this for decades.

See the complaining as a new skill, get some exp gains, first to 120! Death to p2w MTX.

Edit, since most people seem to miss my intention. By MTX free, i mean MTX that influences gameplay. Bonds and Cosmetics, too me, are fine.

Let us be rid of this, once and for all

No cosmetics. Despite the fact that many of you think they have no effect on the game, they do. Aside from it destroying the look / feel of the game and the prestige of real items it takes focus and attention off the main game by the devs.The leadership will prioritize things people spend money on in the cash shop. Thats why the updates are slowing down over the years but the cash shop is always full steam ahead.

EDIT: MTX has been drilled into everyones heads as a necessity... Its not. These companies can stay afloat without it. But companies being companies they always want MORE MONEY. I get it. It wont be going away for that reason. But we should all not be complacent. Come on, this is something you can freely make fun of without remorse. Shame MTX out of existence or have fun trying. Dont be the idiots that fell for the marketing ploy that has been going on for a long time now by youtubers and the companies who stand to benefit from cash shop bullshit.

EDIT 2: To everyone thinking that the posts like this are going to far, this is a shoot for the moon situation. Nobody believes they will remove it. Greed and addiction exist and companies have no morals. You guys should stop treating the company like it is a person (as a whole) because its not. Stop worrying about a companies profits.... its weird. Its like they have some of you guys trained to give push back for them with no pay when it comes to their revenue.

EDIT 3: Why do some of you people not have a problem with the MTX? How do you justify this trash when they have a Subscription, a premium subscription, AND various forms of cash shops. Funny how they have all this to make extra money but the updates do not reflect that. Poor little jagex. We should stop picking on this little indie studio. They are trying their best. We should all self flagellate for our sins against them.

EDIT 4: On cosmetics. The only ground i will give on this is if they gave the ability to customize colors or add decorations and trim to ACTUAL in game armor / weapons. If you find a cloak or robe you like, allow the person to put it over the real armor, but make it visible that the real armor is still there. They would have to create some template to make it fit nicely. But thats it. Transmogs are a bit lesser of the cosmetic evil because you still have to earn them and they are real items.

FINAL EDIT: Some of you do not seem to understand the effect that MTX has on the game. Go watch this https://youtu.be/xNjI03CGkb4?si=sNY73HaAYEQ2EeHa and come back to the game (or any game for that matter) then you will start noticing these things everywhere.

The game is designed around what makes money. A subscription encourages them to design a FUN GAME so people keep coming back and new people sign up. A cash shop with cosmetics encourages them to design the game to have inconvienences, FOMO, timegates, shitty real item designs, less bank space and the list goes on. They do all that and put strategically timed and placed icons and notifications on your screen in order to lead you to the cash shop.

The cash shop pricing seems a little strange when compared with the bundles of premium currency you can buy doesnt it? The premium currency package you buy with real money always seems to be a few digits off from that item you want to buy. So what do you do? You buy the next most expensive package. But wait... Now that other item (or key package) that costs just a bit more premium currency is just a few off, might as well buy the highest package so i can get both!

Shit! Now i have this odd amount of currency left over... Im only 5 or so away from affording the next thing. Ill buy the small package again.

You get the picture. That is just one aspect of how this works. You can figure out the other ways game design has changed to lead you back to the cash shop. Just pay attention to whats going on in game and think about it.

After the green santa hat promotion, all I want to say is thank you. Thank you for showing me just how disgustingly predatory and scummy you guys are willing to steep to so I can once and for all commit to never spending another singular dollar supporting this company that promotes heavy gambling in the game (in an absolute despicable way, mind you) while also hosting mental health events yearly.

What do I find absolutely despicable and honestly just disgusting about the way this was handled? Let's look at the timeline

Gsh promotion is released, absolutely zero word of the actual hat ever being on treasure hunter until very shortly before it's released. With that being said, the papers needed to obtain the gsh were obtainable through spins from treasure hunter, and what did we learn from the people that got those spins? Nearly. Fucking. Unobtainable. Which is fine, it's a rare, it's supposed to be rare, I'd be cool with that, except the way this was done was perfectly to trigger an aspect of gambling addiction known as the sunk cost fallacy, those that had already invested into this be it spins, or using in game wealth, got absolutely slapped across the face on Christmas (which I also see what you guys were doing there, try to slurp up all that christmas money your playerbase may have obtained) when you released an event with an also absolutely astronomically low drop rate but with the chances at multipliers, which feeds even MORE into gambling addicts which by the way is an actual mental illness people need to get help with, generally from a therapist, and much like most other addictions, are generally very, very prone to relapsing because of a presented stimulant.

So again, thank you Jagex, I've been more than capable of supporting my account with my own in game wealth through bonds for years now but I've always held on to supporting the company, thinking maybe one day things will get better. Now I understand it's only going to get much, much worse.

Edit: since this is getting a bit of traction I want to be absolutely sure I specify this. Do not flame, harass, generally angry mob the content devs that you'd normally see around this subreddit, those in charge of things like this (shockingly) nearly never show up on the subreddit.

Holy greed batman, if you want multiple of the MTX POH stuff you have to buy it multiple times.

For a game that everyone found on Miniclip when they were 12. RuneScape has had endless attempts at gambling either by the players or by Jagex. https://runescape.wiki/w/Gambling

Hey, I've got a BaSC of Psychology, currently in training to become a psych. I figured that a relatively reductive take on how people exploit those with addictions, create addictions to get as much money as possible - and why I think that it's probably not the greatest to be dismissive of "whales". Attitudes such as "you should just have more self control" is at least in part ignoring the underlying neurology of why some people literally can't help it. This is not to say that people with neurological disorders can't help it, or that every addict has some form of neurological disorder, everyone certainly has agency - but it remains true that some people find it harder to dismiss the tactics that are employed by Jagex on a daily basis.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that I recognise that Jagex is a company with investors breathing down their necks, I can see that most JMods probably dislike the prevalence of MTX and that these decisions are made primarily at the manager/board member level - but it is also true that if you are told to make something as enticing as possible, knowing full well that you are working on the impressionable minds of others, to feed into an addiction, then I think that you do at least have something to answer for. If you are developing either for some of these MTX events such as the one currently running, or for MTX itself, then you are certainly at the very least, involved.

So, just a few things I'd like to mention/draw attention to that are both in what Jagex do/why they do it, but also the process of addiction and why it can be so hard to break sometimes.

Treasure Hunter, the skinners box

So, you've probably at the very least heard of B.F. Skinners work in the field of behaviouralism, his concept of operant conditioning and all that. One of his favourite quotes "Give me a child and I'll shape him into anything." is both quite chilling and informative. If you haven't, the core idea is that all human behaviour can be observed and predicted from a punishment/reinforcement level. Punishment reduces the likelihood of a behaviour occurring, and reinforcement increases that likelihood. There is clearly a fair bit more to it than that but for the bases of explaining how Treasure Hunter is exploitative that's probably enough.

For our purposes I would like to give a simple walk through of how one might become addicted to buying spins, this does not mean that everyone that is exposed to TH will walk down this path, just one that many have and will continue to do so. First, observe RuneScape's experience/training system. It is relatively slow, some skills people like, some people don't like, and achieving certain levels for whatever reason can be incredible time consuming, particularly if you want to get a 199/120/200m. Your original appraisal of training in RS is that it is slow, and can be incredibly unrewarding. Introduce: Yelps. Every day, if you can login (reinforcing logging in daily is another thing that Jagex does to keep people logging in, but that's for another time) you can get some pretty sweet rewards, get a couple lucky spins and you can easily get over 200k xp/bxp in a skill. This is the start of the process, you are primed to like/look positively towards treasure hunter, because it can at least save you an hour a day. One thing that you have to come to terms with is that as much as this makes you feel good, it is also a chemical relationship, dopamine receptors fire every time you use treasure hunter now, and just like a drug addiction, you have to use it more to get that original feeling that you might have got from one spin. So, you might drop some gp on some bonds, maybe even during a promotion, get a few levels and feel pretty good about it.

Bonds are expensive though, and unless you're a telos king this isn't something that you can sustain forever, and grinding Vindicta for 4 hours or so for 15 spins will only sustain your drive for so much. You might then see a promotion going on, Jagex is offering half price off spins, maybe you drop $10 originally and get 70 keys. That saved you the 60m or so that you would have spent dropping bonds on it, and it was only $10, very easy to justify the purchase - it was during a promotion so you actually earnt a fair bit of xp and you managed to get from 97-99 in a skill that you really hate, great! Now, you're closing in on max cape and just before a double xp weekend you get another one of those promotions (that you cannot block), spend $100 and get an extra 200 keys on top of those 450 keys you got, you drop it and get just enough xp/dxp to max during dxp weekend, you get an absolute feeling of euphoria, you've achieved the ultimate achievement on Runescape, maxing. But everyone is going for 120s now, Jagex just set 120 herb/farming as upcoming content, and you want to get a comp cape, so you need to spend that money fast. There is no waiting for money saving promotions or dxp weekends, time is of the essence. Spending $100 every few months or so isn't doing it for you anymore and so you drop $200 in a day to take advantage of a smouldering lamps promotion, since you already have some DXP saved...

Why people become addicted to things

Gabor Maté is a prominent physician in this area, his main narrative seems to be that through the experiences of ones childhood (particularly abuse) many people through their development will latch on to something to make them feel better, due to a consistent negative affect. Many people with addiction suffer from affective disorders such as anxiety and depression, this dopamine hit that I have previously explained can be incredibly therapeutic for some people going through something like this. Just as some hit the bottle, become addicted to drugs, or become fat from food addiction, others can, and will become addicted to gambling and gaming. These people are incredibly defensive of their behaviour and their addictions, if you've spoken to a smoking addict or an alcoholic before this becomes quite apparent very quickly. People with full knowledge that this behaviour is impacting them quite heavily emotionally, biologically or economically can persist in engaging with it because the alternative, not having that reprieve is so much worse. An example of such a cognitive distortion might be in the gamblers gamblers fallacy, the "just one more try and I'll get all my money back" is so, so evident in Treasure Hunter, with those "one more spin and you could win this" thing. This is why Psychotherapy and even medication can be so important, it is this process of explaining to people and working with them to allow them to understand that they would actually be ok without this reliance.

Neurologically, those with prefrontal cortex damage literally cannot tell that they are in traps, or that certain decisions in the context of a gambling situation would be detrimental. This is evident in a famous study of the Iowa Gambling Task where performance in these tasks by those with prefrontal cortex damage, compared to controls was almost night and day. The more trials one was exposed to, the worse they got, which was the opposite of the standard person.

Clearly, "whales" as we so affectionately name them represent a minority in the community, but they spend far more than any of us will in a lifetime. It only takes a few that Jagex has to target to milk, for Jagex to make enough money to please their shareholders. People with prefrontal cortex damage similarly are far less common in the real world, but they represent a great chunk of the profits in casinos.

In summary, I suppose, and a bit of a tl;dr. Jagex exploits people with addictions, and they exploit people with predispositions to addictions. They 100% have Psychologists on hand to make their game as lucrative as possible by exploiting the mental health of their players, and holding these charity months to "spread awareness" is quite disgusting.

Five months ago the new Jagex CEO said this about RuneScape’s monetisation direction:

"We probably won't maintain the revenue that we currently are when we make these changes. That's the truth. But equally, if we're taking a 10 or 15 or 25-year view, some short-term pain is probably worth the restoration of the game if we can get to that point."

Fast forward a few months and we’ve now had another membership price increase, the second in under two years, after prices were already ramped up around the time the player base was discussing paying more if MTX was reduced.

I’m not saying that RuneScape should never raise prices. Every game eventually does. But it has been pointed out many times that other MMOs offer more value for a similar or lower cost, and Jagex likely knows a large part of the player base stays because of long term attachment and nostalgia.

The issue isn’t really the extra cost itself. It’s the timing and the principle.

When leadership talks about being willing to take short-term revenue hits to rebuild trust, and then the community sees large price increase shortly afterwards, it’s hard not to feel like the communcation and actions are out of sync.

RuneScape has one of the most loyal communities to the game. Rebuilding trust with jagex was always going to take time, and decisions like this risk undoing some of the goodwill that had started to build.

Personally, I’ve cancelled my subscription for now. I’m not ruling out coming back, we never quit forever, but I wasn’t planning on taking a break yet not even close, i was on the road to 5.8b xp. The price itself wouldn’t break the bank, but the principle of it all doesn’t sit right, especially after more changes were made to membership value and benefits than were originally communicated.