What would happen if you took a Capitalist economy and switched it to a form of “State Capitalism” overnight? It happened on Dec 10th 2007 in RuneScape the MMORPG. They made these massive changes to put an end to real world trading. People took to the streets rioting. Flooded the forums with post after post of opinions. Most expressing displeasure with the new changes. I had a different reaction. I watched for days as the new markets started to take effect and read tons of peoples opinions.

To me it was like watching a real economy with all its complexities in faster than real time. If it was only a simplified game version of an economy. I watched people who were disillusioned with the government emigrate. I watched prices on some items fall as people panicked and flooded the market with goods. Now as time has gone on I have seen certain markets stabilize and some dry up completely.

One of the best articles I have read about the shift in the economy was the TruthScape Special Reports - Understanding and Surviving the RuneScape Market Crash of 2007 by Charles M. Kozierok. A 6 page article that does a really good job of comparing and contrasting the RuneScape economy to real world economies.

Have their efforts to stop gold farming and real world trading worked? I don’t know. There do seem to be substantially less people online and I have yet to see anyone resembling a bot or gold farmer.

I personally like the new changes. They have reduced the amount of “noise” in the cities and have cut down on the scarcity of some resources.