With the recent overnight raid of Venezuela by the United States leading to the capture of now former President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, the country in a state of both optimism and uncertainty.
This has also effected the video game industry with one major impact being on the RuneScape economy. For those unaware, most gold farmers within the popular MMORPG are based out of Venezuela. This is due to the exchange rate for in-game gold to U.S. Dollars as well as the game’s ability to run on basic computers. Some who farm for 10 hours a day in RuneScape can earn as much as 2-weeks salary for the average Venezuelan. If you would like to see a more detailed explanation you can view SirPugger’s video down below:
Since January 3, there has been a huge drop in the amount of items being traded has dropped significantly and has affected prices of items across the board. Just in the past week, the amount of items being traded dropped on an average of 70%, but has rebounded later on in the week as gold farmers have gotten back to work and others seeing this as a money-making opportunity on the black market.
We’ve made a short list comparing some popular items’ prices from January 3 to our publishing date of January 10.Price (January 3) Price (Current) Amount Traded (Jan 3) Amount Traded (Current) Lobster 178gp 173gp 8.226M 5.496M Coal 197gp 217gp 109M 79M Yew Logs 185gp 195gp 65.7M 70.8M Abyssal Whip 1.406m 1.392M 15,957 12,628 Zulrah’s Scales 223gp 209gp 110M 123M Gold Ore 101gp 101gp 66.7M 47.3M Steel Cannonball 219gp 214gp 206.5M 160.9M Green Dragonhide 1,185gp 1,259gp 14.182M 9.87M Shark 704gp 647gp 22.849M 15.76M
