Disclaimer: The Runescape Blog does not endorse cheating in any way. The Rules of Runescape are to be abided by at all times.
Hello everyone, I’m ThirdEyeOpen (Most know me by other names but I am choosing to remain anonymous while posting on this blog). Here is an article I have written to share with you all regarding Runescape’s cheating scene. I’m currently retired from Runescape however I spent a total of 5 years playing the game on and off, mostly focusing on the darker side of the game which is cheating. This article details all the intricacies of Runescape and cheating and what really goes on behind the scenes, I assure you that it will surprise you.
Imagine this – Thousands of dollars are instantly wired to your bank account through some complicated anonymous online payment system you have worked out with your main buyer, it would have been a lot more but most of your product was confiscated earlier in the night. Your security wasn’t tight enough, they busted some of your guys… but only because the bastards have been spying on you.
You probably think I’m talking about some sort of organized crime ring, and in a sense your right. Calling it crime might be a little bit of a stretch, but we were definitely organized, and we were definitely pissing a large gaming corporation named Jagex Ltd. off. Welcome to the Runescape cheating scene – the real one. Think that’s a little bit too dramatic? Keep reading.
Ask your average 12-year-old flax-picking dragon-slaying Runescape adventurer about their conception of in game cheating, and you’ll most likely receive some sort of vague response regarding people who use auto-bots to get ahead. For the greater majority of what we call the “cheating community”, that is true. At face value, everything seems reasonably innocent; most of the kids just use simple autoing programs or pathetic scam techniques in some lame attempt to accelerate their progress within the game, and in the end it’s just a game… so they get banned from the game, or they get away with it, and that’s that. Right? It’s just a game….
The thing you’ve got to realize about video games is the more advanced they become the more closely they begin to emulate reality, I mean that is the point after all… trying to emulate reality as closely as our technology allows in some sort of fun and entertaining way. The introduction of Massively Multi-player Online Games (MMORPG) was an incredibly innovative leap in video game technology, it uses our advances in communication technology to effectively emulate a reasonably functional social atmosphere while still managing to keep the players entertained and focused. This is an amazing thing; you can now create and maintain social relationships that are almost as good as the ones in real life while sitting in front of your computer playing a game. The other thing that has come with the introduction of MMORPGs is the ability to consistently add new content to the game, essentially making it so the game never ends, providing the gamer with a space that he may participate in for incredibly long periods of time. So I mean when your in this space for extended periods of time, and there’s this intricate social atmosphere, and it’s entertaining and all that jazz, and as familiarity grows it starts to become more and more like real life, becoming a second life in some sense. In moderation, this is ok, however some people reach the point where they actually prefer the virtual reality to their day-to-day life, and it becomes an escape of sorts, which, as far as I’m concerned, is comparable to the same mentality our society uses against drug addicts.
This is no longer a game. To some people, this is an acceptable reality. As such the imaginary things in this game start to attain a real life value – the more games emulate reality the more influence they have in our actual reality. So now we’ve got this problem where people are assigning real life monetary value to these entirely intangible game objects such as high level characters and the virtual money within the game, and this is where our problem begins.
Some kid discovers that some other kid who enjoys the game a whole lot more than him will pay him $20 in real life for some of his virtual currency inside the game world, which he has attained by simply playing the game. Everything is still marginally innocent at this point, generally it would be impossible for any player to make a decent wage attaining and selling virtual currency assuming they are playing the game as it is intended to be played. This is where the cheating community comes in. Kids see this real life value vested within the game so they create and use programs which are designed to play the game for them with the intent of obtaining mass amounts of virtual currency which they can sell for real money at a minimal expense of their time since these programs are doing all the work. Naturally the gaming company frowns upon this and makes it against the rules to exchange the virtual goods for real life objects and justify it using some rather vague intellectual property laws, which state that since they created the game all of the data within the game belongs to them and is not to be exchanged for profit among players. Consequently, because there is still a relatively large amount of profit invested in this the cheating communities are forced “underground” and a black market manifests for the exchange of gold.
A Black market. Seriously. The thing to remember is that for the most part, we’re dealing with kids here… The average age of a Runescape player is probably about 10-13 with a few 14-18 year olds and a handful of adults as well. So these kids on these black market sites are facilitating these shady exchanges over virtual currency, and in the same way that the video game emulates reality, these off site black markets begin to emulate reality. It turns into a primitive version of any real black market, such as things for drugs and child pornography, except it’s inhabited mostly with teenagers with the slightly older ones running the show instead of adults. Organized Crime Pre-School.
So that’s where I come in, I was one of those older teenagers who was sort of running part of the show. Most people tended to stick to the traditional auto-bot method of obtaining mass amounts of virtual currency. Some hardcore hacking also occurred but it was very rare and mostly obsolete by the time I entered the scene. I was able to create a new form of cheating which involved the discovery and exploitation of natural flaws within the Runescape game engine, this ability came from my extensive understanding of the game engine as I played the game rather excessively from the age 11-15 until I made the transition from a regular player to a cheater. At first, I simply used my skills to advance my character within the game, however when my main character was banned I got a little more devious in my intent and began finding exploits with real life profit in mind. At the time I was 15 and experiencing some serious problems in my personal life, and as a result I had to ride my bike 5 miles to the public library every day to search for exploits on Runescape. I recruited some old friends of mine to help me, many of which proved to be invaluable accomplices throughout the rest of my Runescape cheating career. Our first major breakthrough occurred when we found an exploit that allowed us to do many amazing things, the most important of which involving the ability to rapidly duplicate an item (glory amulet) that could be sold for a relatively large amount of virtual currency. Needless to say we got a little overexcited, and a group of about six of us began a round the clock operation to obtain as much money as possible. This ended up being a very stupid idea, as the game maintains an economy and market that function much like the market in the real world…. we ended up flooding the market with an excessive amount of this item, resulting in it’s value being reduced by about 50%, which as far as I know has not fully recovered to this day, two years later. Within two days Jagex had become aware of the problem and we all woke up one morning to find our accounts disabled. Fortunately, we still had some bartering room, as Jagex had no clue how the exploit was preformed and needed information. What ensued was an online interrogation of sorts that resulted in one of my friends accounts being spared in trade for the exploit while the other five accounts remained banned (the reasoning behind this was very personal and complicated, but it was my own choice). Having been arrested and interrogated before in real life, I can say that it was very similar in some ways, which makes this whole thing rather amusing. I felt pretty bad about getting all of my friends accounts banned, so in an effort to make things up with them, I decided we should form an organized group so we could really get back at Jagex. A website was created where we would share information about our projects with the general public and encouraged other Runescape players to find their own exploits using information we provided. Within a week we had 200 members. A sort of hierarchy began to form, I was at the top along with the founding members right under me… we had certain people assigned to certain things, one friend of mine was assigned to maintaining the bulk of the website, another assigned to assisting me in the main exploitation discovery, etc. We found several more extreme exploits within the course of a year, and we got more and more careful and organized about it as we went.
I turned out to be quite the business man; I began selling the gold we made on the largest Runescape black market site and ended up becoming the number one gold seller for a period of time. The whole thing was kind of pathetic. At first I would sell small quantities to individual buyers, and I’ve got to tell you it was like dealing with 12 year old heroin junkies. About 75% of the people who contacted me were simply trying to rip me off using obvious scam techniques while hiding behind the internet’s wall of anonymity, and most of the legitimate buyers were simply pathetic. I had some customers who would spend $500 on virtual currency simply for personal use, it was ridiculous and perhaps the most disgusting waste of money I have ever seen, I felt like I was dealing with junkies… I even had to talk to a few parents who were buying this stuff for their kids, which was absurd. Eventually as it became increasingly difficult for me to hold onto virtual currency for long periods of time without getting banned I had to sell the gold cheaply in bulk to resellers, who simply made their money by buying the currency and reselling it to individuals for more. This sort of hierarchy is ridiculously similar to the way drug dealing works. Eventually I became a moderator on the black market site which allowed me to maintain connections with several other powerful figures within the cheating scene. I would maintain a list of who owed me favors and this sort of thing and it came to the point where I was practically like a kiddie mob boss, without the violence of course.
Our setup lasted for a good while; it turned into a game of playing hide-and-seek with Jagex. They would always be attempting to ban our accounts and find our exploits to fix them and we would always be taking new security precautions and all these sorts of things, finding quick ways to sell mass amounts of gold and the like…. There would be some nights where I would make $1,000 in a matter of hours, and I mean going through the whole process of attaining the gold, finding a buyer for all of it, and selling it and getting it into my bank account, and that’s only counting the gold that made it through. It was not uncommon for us to have accounts containing 500M-1.5Billion banned before we could sell the gold. It got to the point where we actually caught multiple Jagex employees spying on us inside the game. The bigger we got the more the drama escalated, and it was like being part of some epic mafia movie or something… it was all very entertaining for us, and I know Jagex had a few laughs over it as well despite all the trouble we caused them. Eventually Jagex said enough was enough and after ignoring multiple lawsuit threats from them and subverting multiple attempts to have our website shutdown, I finally had a legal invoice Fedexed to my front door telling me I had to shut down my site or they would sue me, with which I decided to comply. In the end, we had 3,000 members on our site, well over 100 Runescape accounts banned (at least 50 over level 110) for exploitation and gold trafficking, and had managed to accumulate a total of perhaps $50,000 between our senior members, about $10,000 of which I took home personally.
In retrospect, the sociological ramifications of all this are what interest me the most. I still can’t get over the type of realistic environments that were being created and participated in by all these kids, and how similar everything was to the real world. It was like someone had taken the world and scaled it down into a virtual playground for kids, with the good, and the bad all perfectly intact, and Jagex as the ultimate authority equivalent to government. I’ve kept up with many of my old connections from the cheating scene and it’s interesting to see the direction that many of them have gone in (including myself!). Some got involved with credit card and PayPal fraud and money laundering, some got involved with online black market drug trade, and at least one probably got involved with homosexual porn sites, haha. Granted plenty of them also went in successful directions as well, such as attending prominent universities and running legitimate websites and such. Just keep in mind we’re still talking about people who are mostly under 20; I’m only 17 at the time of writing this. It’s really easy to see how the Runescape cheating scene could lead to more serious things, I have it on very good authority that the same types of anonymous online payment methods we used for Runescape gold transactions are the same ones used by real life criminals for money laundering, stolen PayPal accounts, drug exchange,and the like…. and apparently the communities in those circles are very similar in nature as well. Another thing worth mentioning is that the Runescape cheating community is essentially run by a very small group of people (most of which were extremely intelligent and often very mature for their age), the rest of it seems to be composed of wanna-be Runescape thugs that don’t really do anything significant other than participate in the gold exchange and auto-bot programs.
As of now, I do not regret anything… it was perhaps some of the most fun I could ever imagine having online; I learned so many valuable life skills in the process, and met so many people who will probably still be friends for years to come. I feel that my actions were no more immoral than the actions of Jagex which have caused so many kids to become hopelessly addicted to their game, much like many others MMORPGs (World of Warcraft, anyone?)… I have personally seen people’s lives significantly hindered by these types of games, and between the ages of 11 and 14 for me, mine was one of them. I encourage everyone who reads this article to evaluate the deep concepts that these sorts of games hold and how it applies to you, as a player. There is nothing wrong with playing games and there is nothing wrong with cheating in games, it is human nature to strive to be the best, and cheating is just one of the many ways that aspect manifests itself. It’s really easy for everyone to paint a black and white picture of good vs. evil in these scenarios, and I’m supposed to end this paper with some spiel going into how you shouldn’t really cheat in Runescape, but the fact of the matter is, people who cheat will cheat, and they’ll find any way they can to do it. So just take the information in this article for what it is and think about how it pertains to you, because, fun and games aside, all of this stuff is much more serious than it seems….
RuneScape Accounts can be purchased here
Some images from my career (Click to see full size):
Amazing, thankyou so much TEB. This article gives an incredible insight into the underground world of Rs trading.
I can now truly see the downfalls in such a place, and i know, true to myself, that it is not the type of place I would like to be.
Thank you once again,
`11
Amazing post. It was very interesting to read.
And so it was… Fun times, and good lessons were learned.
Yeah, I remember it too, those times I’ll never forget <3
Nice read.
im guessing ur Kami.
LEGEND
Truly magnificent post. It gave alot of insight on the things i.. well. remember from years ago, before i built runesociety and became a web developer.
Great job, cheers to RSB. First article FTW?
wow. what an awesome article. Never thought such black market sites were so well organized.
Awsome article kami, not often that I read a story as long as this one
Great article
Interesting History, i never imagined such kind of things around the runescape ” Black market”, i wonder what you did with all that money.
The article is very nice
Wow, great article. If this is you Kami, I have to say that I never knew you actually went this far with this type of stuff, I thought it was just glitches. But man, to come open and tell everyone, this is great in my honest opinion. Very nice article and I enjoyed reading it very much.
woah…
unbelieveable… 
Lol I see you have sythe.org open behind the runescape window. Good site, good site.
Oh wow lol the tainted ones got sued by jagex? ownt lol
woah
I’ll always remember you for getting my first account banned. :p Great article, even though I think I have pretty much heard as much about it before already.
Funny that they sue you over flaws they made. It’s like saying we have a sub par product and selling it at full value but don’t tell our customers there are problems. If you do, it’s your fault we lose money and not our fault for not making it right.
Unbelieveable… I have to say, this article should be published somewhere, not only is the content perplexing, I also like your message and your language is just… Wow!
I’m amazed that you have such insight into what RS really is, what it means for its players, what effects it has and I really enjoyed your own “amazement about how close to real life it is.” Not many people are that open about it!
Congratulations
well who hell is lol?
well who in the right mind would risk cheating bastards they would be.
I’m not really interested in starting a runescape black market site but I am interested in how you created your login so people could become members of your site. K13
Do you still possess any of that money? This is possibly one of the greatest articles I have ever read. I am a hardcore blogger and you just made me rethink the way I construct my posts.
Thank you for the post. Indeed “the dark side”…
You tell an interesting story. I am amazed that the legal representatives of Jagex have such bad spelling/grammar…
Dang, indeed this was like the mob, i can already see a book on it. maybe you could try writing a book on it (more cash) i would defently read, fiction or non fiction
Very impressive article. It’s fascinating to learn about all the underground acts that happen in a game that no one really knows about.
yes i do agree. i once had “Buisness” with you. and i was one of those people who bought Rs gold i regret nothing, i might have only spent $100 on it but im glad it was to such a great person. i wish you a bright future and do hope ill meet you again on another rpg game. if you still play them =p
Very nice article. Very well written too. Another poster suggested that you right a book. Sounds like a good suggestion to me, I would buy a copy.
I read the letter you got from the law firm.
That was so poorly written that it shows that they just asked a law firm to send you somthing.
They stated really that the only thing you were doing wrong (that they could legally get you on) is copyright issues while using their name and pictures!
I think you were wise to shut down the operation then, as you were able to quit without getting into boiling water, but I think technically all you had to do was remove the name runescape from your site, not post RS pictures and there would be nothing they could do.
Again, thanks for an interesting read.
[...] points out an interesting blog entry on cheating in Runescape. The poster, who wishes to remain anonymous, describes himself as a [...]
The funny thing is about all these “hacker” stories (of course, we are taking this guy at his word. Anyone with a basic copy of PS can make the screenies, and the letter as well. I think the mistakes in the letter are an accident..but not on the side of the “lawyers”) is that guys like that claim to basically do a few things:
1) Sit in front of a PC screen for hours and hours and hours (at that age I was hunting tail)
2) Stealing the equivalent of a few thousand dollars, MAYBE.
You know what? That’s a job. I know people that sit in front of a PC screen all day (designers, artists, musicians) and make 300k a year, AND they have health insurance.
So basically this guy played “Job” and got “fired.”
Not impressive, but interesting for sure.
Now, let’s hope that this guy (IF his story is true, which of course he cannot prove, but neither can I prove that he’s NOT true) puts as much energy into school, so maybe one day he’ll make something that will make a difference.
You know, solve world peace or something. But I doubt it. This might his BEST STORY EVER.
There’s quite a large difference between selling online gp and solving world peace :-p.
Yes, I know.
That was an attempt at humor, being that I knew that bilking an online browser based video game for (allegedly) 10,000 dollars is a far far cry from doing anything useful or memorable.
Hell, if he woulda’ put all those hours into let’s say, a heist plan…not even a large one, just some minor music store…
…no, no, I got it:
He coulda’ got a job at Guitar Center let’s say…and while he was squirreling away his 12 bucks an hour (being that he was living with mom and dad’s paychecks paying for his roof and his tummy) he could have planned the theft of ONE limited edition Amplifier, worth upwards of 15,000 dollars. Trust me, they can easily reach that much.
With all those hours and hours of planning, he could have nabbed it and possibly gotten away with it.
Instead, he blew the 10k he got for all those hours and hours of work on some soda pop and maybe a new PC. Lord knows10k does NOT go very far.
But that one amp coulda’ netted him at least the 10k, for a few hours work. The whole time he planned the “heist” he was also making money at Guitar Center, and had saved up 4 or 5k over the summer, all the while building a (sometimes very profitable) career.
Let’s skip all this.
He goes to the local college and nabs some financial aid. Over the summer he receives well over 10k, and goes to a campus filled with girls, then skips out, leaving his parents (once again) to foot the bill.
I got more ideas. hehe
Satanica
I think he has clearly stated that his reasons were not to make money. He love what he was doing, it was fun, and it was his youth… why not?
You can take him at his word that he did do this, and I wouldn’t look at it as a “bad business decision” as I doubt that crossed his mind. Not to say he wasn’t interested in the money – of course he was, but really I don’t think that is what he was getting at in this article.
Anyhow, that is what I picked up from the article, and I know ThirdEyeBlind pretty well and from other discussions with him I think that he would agree with what I’m saying.
Maybe I’ll go get him to reply to this…
P.S. – Thanks for the review, MMOClerks
Well, there are plenty of things that can bee seen as fun, and things that are done in our youth..but that are still in-excusable.
Let’s look at it this way: according to him, if he is telling the truth, he took 10,00 dollars (helped take 50,000) that was not his.
He stole the money.
So, if he had taken this money from a little old lady, would it be different? Our sympathy is with the little old lady, so of course we would say that is wrong.
Of course, many would say that since the game company is a massive entity, that stealing from them is not the same as stealing from the little old lady.
Now, what if you had 10,000 dollars in your bank account, and he stole it from you? Would you be apt to say “It was just youthful fun.”?
No, you would want to throttle him.
Again we come back to the fact that he stole from a large corporation, so that somehow makes it a little bit more “ok.”
Well, I am saying it does not.
Just like in that scene in Pulp Fiction, where Jules is explaining that he is going to just “walk the earth, like Cain from Kung Fu.” Then his partner explains to him that they have a word for that, and that word is “BUM.”
A thief is a thief. There is no honor among thieves and there is no excusing spending an entire summer (possibly more?) stealing from a company and encouraging children to steal from their parents (in the form of “I’ll go into mom’s purse and get her credit card.”)
He doesn’t say whether he sent the money back, because more than likely he blew the measly 10k on some pot, or some entertainment.
My point is, this is basically the same as some kid writing a blog because he had a successful paper route for a summer, made some money, and got caught cheating the paper company, but pulled out before he got into trouble.
The difference is, that kid with the paper route is actually doing something that takes WORK ETHIC and character.
Of course, we all learn from our youthful mistakes. I would hope that at the ripe old age of 17 he is a reformed character. I don’t know.
I don’t know him.
“There is nothing wrong with playing games and there is nothing wrong with cheating in games, it is human nature to strive to be the best, and cheating is just one of the many ways that aspect manifests itself. It’s really easy for everyone to paint a black and white picture of good vs. evil in these scenarios, and I’m supposed to end this paper with some spiel going into how you shouldn’t really cheat in Runescape, but the fact of the matter is, people who cheat will cheat, and they’ll find any way they can to do it. So just take the information in this article for what it is and think about how it pertains to you, because, fun and games aside, all of this stuff is much more serious than it seems….”
I will let that quote speak almost for itself, being that the closing remarks are often the “wrap-up” of the point for most writers.
He is completely and totally saying that stealing from someone is ok.
He says “cheating is ok, it is human nature.” In this case, the cheating he is referring to is the process by which he stole 10 thousand dollars.
This last quote not only shows his age, but his maturity level as well. He is speaking from the point of view of some kid that has barely even experienced life. He hasn’t been ripped off for 10k yet, so I’ll give him time.
Let me make sure I am clear on this point:
There is no way in hell that anyone can say that petty theft is somehow OK because it is human nature. Competing IS human nature, but when he refers to competing, that is his way of saying “the way I competed, in other words, stole from a company.” Theft is not human nature. Greed is. Being a thief is a choice, being greedy and spoiled are emotions and emotional states of being and are natural, and allowing those feelings to over-run our natural feelings of right and wrong is something only we can allow. No one else is to blame.
This is the case of a kid (allegedly) ripping off a small amount of money from a game company, and basically coming on here to brag about it. That’s fine, but let’s call it what it is.
If he came on here and “hacked” his way into this site, (if you owned it, I do not know the nature of the ownership of this blog) and ruined a database, costing you 10 thousand dollars, you would not think it was interesting or cool.
You would simply think that a bored, spoiled teenager decided that it was human nature to cause you financial and emotional damage.
Let me sum up your comments… he is:
A thief, a braggart, has unethical morals, a potential liar, lazy, stupid, and plans on going to college full of girls and letting his parents foot the bill…?
This seems a bit much to assume from an article in which he clearly states it is him doing something he loved and enjoyed. Call it “Lame” but it was socializing, some of the people you meet online can be as good friends as you would meet in real life. Anyways, let me quickly do a run-through of the arguments you make that seem a little off to me (paraphrasing):
He “stole” virtual money. He earned it through work finding errors in the game’s engine. He knows how RuneScape works better than half of Jagex’s employees. Somehow, I would consider that impressive and interesting, although you yourself said:
But yes, he stole virtual GP. While it may have annoyed Jagex to an extent, look at the lawsuit attempt – one of the other commenters is correct, they could only pin him on copyright infringement. He did not caused $10,000 worth of damage to anyone, he in fact introduced new money into the market and only indirectly harmed Jagex by supporting real-world trading. If Jagex is going to cry over lost GP’s, something is wrong. Nevertheless, he did support real-world trading. Is there something wrong with that? Not when you are selling for a lower price than the people making it in sweatshops, no… in fact I’d venture to call that ethical at that point. He is helping Jagex put “the evil RWT’s” out of business. Fucking irony!
Please revise your entire “theft” argument as it was nothing of the sort – unless of course you plan on saying he’s a bad guy for “stealing” RS screenshots.
Anyhow, I’ve gotta run, but quickly:
It seems you quoted something that directly contradicts what you were trying to prove:
Look at the last sentence. “Take this article and about how it pertains to you.”
So, because he used cheats, exploits and hacks to gain large amount of gold and then sold that gold to children (he said himself that most of the players he dealt with are tweens basically…tweens don’t have credit cards, and even if they had received one, it is under the umbrella of their parents credit. He took advantage of children and sold an item that had no value) he is NOT somehow a common thief.
There is no right at all, in any way shape or form, in what he did. If he were to GIVE AWAY gold that he had obtain through illegal (according to the game) means, he would still be wrong.
See, the key here is that he calls it “cheating” himself. HE admits that it was illegal, and that he pulled out before he could have gotten into some real trouble. That’s because he knows that selling virtual goods without the companies consent is ILLEGAL.
A crime is a crime, but let the punishment fit the crime, of course. I don’t think the kid should be flogged or put in jail. His parents shold be punished, for allowing their child perform illegal acts while in their care, under their supervision. (Living with a parent, whether the parents are good or not, still places the responsibility for the child squarely with the parent.)
All this discussion means nothing. I’ll tell you what it really comes down to:
The world is a much, much different place since 9/11. I know this, and have seen the difference first hand. Security, especially internet security, is of the up-most priority for most companies, and especially the US government. Cyber crimes are looked at harder than ever.
Even the fact that this (really good, I might add) blog has volunteered to host this persons “evidence” and writings are evidence that the blog owner might somehow be connected to a cyber-crime. (I won’t even TYPE the T word, hehe)
Now, if this kid that hacked his way into some basic MMO and amassed a virtual good, then sold those virtual, worthless (in real life terms) items for real life money, then he should be prepared for some real-life circumstances to follow, or not.
I am not connected in any way to anyone that would give a damn. But how we feel about this crime (which is what it is, as the OP states) doesn’t matter. It’s how other people feel about it that matter.
This is how it pertains to me: I just read an article about a kid (just an example along the lines of his crime) stealing someone’s identity and making off with enough cash to get himself jail time, depending on the state.
Let this be a note to any of the players considering this kind of crime: this isn’t simply a video game and some virtual gold…this is a multi-million dollar corporation, and I can guarantee that their lawyers have more money and more access to REAL technology than any of you.
Also, in case I didn’t point it out: “selling gold” to a anyone, child or not, is illegal.
To say that the 10,000 came out of no one’s pockets is not only ignorant, but shows a mis-understanding of how credit card companies work.
Let’s say you get a fraudulent charge on your credit card bill…seems like Lil Timmy has been buying virtual gold from some other kid, and turns out that virtual purchase was not only NOT authorized by you, as the card-holder, but that you didn’t even receive a physical item.
What do you do?
You call your card company, and refuse the charges. They take it off your card, and investigate.
Inside your credit card are so many fees that it would make your head boggle. If not on yours, the money comes out from government subsidies. (Wow, did I spell that right??) Look it up. Ask your parents. The credit card industry accounts for BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of dollars.
This is like arguing that there are no victims with insurance fraud. After all, the insurance companies make billions a year.
Yet, when lil Timmy gets sick and goes to the doctor, his parents cannot afford the bill because doctor’s have to charge an arm and a leg….why? Because of malpractice insurance. They have to be covered for people that not only have had actual claims of damages, but mostly for people that have lied and taken the insurance company for thousands of dollars.
Satanica, I appreciate you taking such a strong interest in my article and you’ve brought up some very good points that I should probably clarify. This all happened a little over a year ago and I’ve had plenty of time to think about this from an ethical/moral perspective.
Now, it’s a bit forward of you to call it blatant stealing. I never “Stole” anything. The majority of the gold I obtained through manipulating the duel arena so that the odds were greatly in my favor. (99%+). Now please let us consider that everyone who was staking the wages I was interested in was in their own fashion a complete and utter gambling addict (isn’t this a kids game? hahaha). They never put up more gold than they were willing to risk to begin with. All of the stakers would use minor cheap tricks to try to get the leg up on one another, that’s how that stuff worked dude… I just happened to be the guy with the best tricks.
But yea, it was still indirectly stealing, though most of them only saw it as virtual currency and not the real life value I took from it.
I stole from gambling addicts, not Jagex.
I admit it was wrong to a certain degree and I wouldn’t do it again, but man… you don’t know how fun it was having the world of Runescape bend to your will – I’m sorry, I got a little carried away. I was 15-16, still pretty young bro.
As for the stuff about me not having a life and all that jazz, I’ll fill you in on a little personal dirt. The majority of the time I was involved in this stuff I was on house arrest. I was legally forbidden from having a life. Why? Because I was a punk ass kid and got myself arrested for some stuff in real life, and I continued being a punk ass kid online, in my own fashion.
I’ve had to overcome a lot of my demons recently, and it’s a lifelong process, I’m doing pretty well in my life right now… but that’s my personal business..
the reason I wrote this article is because i wanted to share… I thought it was pretty cool at the time, and tons of other people thought it was cool too – i still get random people adding me on MSN all the time wanting to talk to me about it (and to be honest I really don’t like talking about it much anymore). But yea, It was interesting as far as RS is concerned, and I thought it would make a good story for those who are still interested in RS.
RS plays no part of my life anymore except for maybe this brief moment where I’m talking to you….
Also, i spent the money on college and moving out, my parents couldn’t afford to send me, so yea… I used my business skills to make some dough.
Anyway, I hope that clears things up some, peace out brother.
Thanks for this eye-opening article into the life of organised cheating. Reading your further comments, I feel that someone should stress how close the good and bad can sometimes be. It’s a very thin line in a lot of situations, despite the fact that most of the time the distinction is clear.
Anyway. What I wanted to tell you is: just imagine how the life of many people could have been changed if you had harnessed all this incredible energy to do good (let’s not get semantic here, I don’t mean good for these kids but for a whole community)? As many technologists know, a tool like a computer or an MMORPG is ethically neutral and can be used THE SAME WAY to do good and bad. The intention is what separates them.
I have no doubt you’re a very smart person, and that you have succumbed to some of your (powerful?) temptations. I would advise you, humbly, to focus your energy to do good. And spread the word.
Believe me, in the long term, you’ll feel infinitely more happier in life. Don’t look at your feet, look at the horizon.
Well, ThirdEye, I do not doubt that you might have learned from the situation.
The whole reason I will always post my “square Joe Q. Public Law abiding citizen” rants on blos like this is because not only do you say that cheating is normal and part of human nature, but you are basically making it interesting to children.
See, that’s the problem…it’s children we are talking about.
Indirectly stealing is still stealing. It’s a petty, silly crime that will get you nothing, in life, at all, period.
I’m sure you already do, but count your lucky stars that right now no one is shaking down this blog owner for more info. As a matter of fact, it would not be hard for someone to go to Runescapes website and to post not only a link to this article, but to send the images you claim are true.
Not only could there be trouble to stir up but now the charges can be switched from abuse of a copyrighted symbol to speaking to others about a private legal matter.
Trust me, lawyers can get ya for anything.
Having said all that, I am still thankful you wrote the article. I am sure you knew that it would be much debated. At least it was a good read!
But stay away from kids..forever. Period. Never again. Kids are one of the few classes of citizens that can be proven victim no matter what..even if the perp is a kid himself.
Satan.
Trent: I’ve come to realize this in the past several months and I’m pretty much on the same page as you right now…
Satanica: I was a kid too. Most of them were already involved in the cheating scene anyway, but that’s beside the point. I don’t think I exactly glorified cheating in this article, I made it sound exciting, it wouldn’t be a good article if I didn’t, but I definitely included many negative aspects of the cheating scene… I think the one people should look closely at is the fact many of my acquaintances went on to do even worse illegal activity online. As for the lawsuit thing… Jagex knows who I am, I’m not hiding anything by posting under an anonymous name, I have other reasons for that. Jagex and I have always had a pretty humorous relationship, I’ve joked around with Jmods in game and such, and they gave me plenty of chances to shutdown my site before they got super serious about it. In the end I respect them and I know at least a few of their staff members respect me.
but yea, I’m not going to be doing anything like this that influences children anymore, I’m too old for that now, hah.
Hehe, thanks for digging the article! I’m one of the managers of that blog, so be sure to keep your eyes out for more cool articles in the future
Well I’m confused… That comment (#43) is what I wrote on Digg in response to someone Digging this article… not sure how it showed up/got posted here.
ThirdEyeOpen: that’s really great, I somewhat grateful that you’ve been able to realise that, it’s no small feat honestly. Don’t forget also to spread the word, because taking this route to realise what you’ve realised is not a shortcut people should take. Lessons are here to be learnt and I’ll do my bit by linking your article anywhere relevant.
Good Luck with your new e-life and hope to cross your path one day!
Ahhh… More coming soon? Perhaps? =p
You would think that R.S. is just a game, but after reading this you realize what it really is.
Thanks for the post was it kami? and good job.
You would think that Rune.Scape. is just a game, but after reading this you realize what it really is.
Thanks for the post was it kami? and good job.
Theres a lot of ignorant comments on this article, which was great by the way.
No money has been ‘stolen’, ThirdEyeOpen has been given the $ willingly in exchange for his services – no bank accounts were broken into, nothing robbed, no hacking, no illegal acts committed at all. Billions of people work all over the world for $ every day, its neither unlawful nor unethical for someone to earn money via computer games.
Noone stole from Jagex either, so no crime has been committed against them – the $ earned by ThirdEyeOpen was never theirs to begin with, nor do they have any magical right to seize the money belonging to 3rd parties like ThirdEyeOpen or his clients. If anything, Jagex made even more $ thanks to ThirdEyeOpen and the membership fees they will be taking in – the Duel arena up until recently has always been a member area.
Neither has there been any copyright infringement – was ThirdEyeOpen selling copies of runescape software? No. Was he providing them for download? No. Was he misrepresenting himself as Jagex and committing trademark infringement? No. Was he infringing patents? No.
Its sad that Jagex have intimidated you into shutting your site down using a threatening letter that is 100% BS, thats really the only criminal thing that happened here. But we already knew that Jagex aren’t nice people.. so no surprises there really, they lived up to the (low) expectations I have of them..
Congratulations to ThirdEyeOpen, enjoy the $ your hard work and cleverness have allowed you to earn just like any other hard worker is entitled to the fruits of their labour.
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