Old School RuneScape developer Jagex was forced to make a hardline stance against cryptocurrency-driven market manipulation after the MMO's economy faced peculiar investments and scarcities driven by, of all things, a meme coin gauged against RuneScape items.
In a blog post, Jagex observes, "Recently, we've seen cryptocurrencies and meme coins appear that track, trade against, or otherwise attempt to tie themselves to the price or volume of items in our games. We want to be clear about where we stand."
Jagex stands firmly on the grave of meme coins, laying out a "a zero-tolerance approach" to cryptocurrency and market manipulation.
Because this practice sees real money "influence our economies and people are incentivised to act with the intention of real financial gain," Jagex writes, it's classified as real-world trading, which is banned in RuneScape and has seen increasing crackdown after OSRS tech and rule changes.
"Whether a given activity constitutes malicious market manipulation is at Jagex's sole discretion," the post adds. "Actions that have unintended consequences for the economy may also result in action against your account, the severity of which will be proportionate to the suspected intent of the user(s)."
This mess kicked up a few days ago after some crypto traders hatched the idea of hoarding OSRS' Robin Hood Hats, a fairly rare piece of headwear only obtainable from scavenger hunt-like clue scrolls.
The idea, it seems, was to stoke publicity and a market narrative, or at least a shell convincing enough to attract buyers to the coin and accrue trading fees. It's not far removed from common prediction market grifts. OSRS, which looks to be at its peak and has drawn quite some attention in the MMO space, simply provided a visible, searchable theater for the performance, and a fairly malleable open market.
هەفتانە هەرسکردنەکان، چیرۆکەکانی ئەو کۆمەڵگایانەی کە خۆشت دەوێن و زۆر شتی تر
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/mmo/crypto-traders-rigged-the-market-of-classic-mmo-old-school-runescape-so-its-developers-came-out-with-a-zero-tolerance-policy-on-market-manipulation/
