Trump waved his hand, stirring up Venezuela's game hurricane

Written by: Cookie, BlockBeats

You never know where a butterfly's flap of its wings will send a hurricane.

Nine days after the U.S. raided Venezuela and arrested its president Maduro, a game called RuneScape once again made history. On that day, the number of concurrent online players exceeded 258,000, the highest in the game's 25-year history.

Two seemingly unrelated events were mysteriously connected.

“Will the U.S. attack on Venezuela cause the price of RuneScape gold to rise and affect the number of players?”

While the world focuses on international oil prices or the Venezuelan stock market due to the turmoil in Venezuela, RuneScape players are paying attention to the in-game gold, prices, and the changes in the number of RuneScape players.

If Maduro's “departure” from Venezuela signaled the end of an era, then Venezuelan players “leaving” RuneScape also marked the end of an era.

The end of an old era simply means history moves forward eternally and mercilessly, and cannot be equated with new hope. The intertwining of Venezuela, RuneScape, and cryptocurrency was once so intense — a story about survival and escape.

Survival

Because of oil, Venezuela was once one of South America's wealthiest countries, but starting in 2013, its economy began to collapse gradually.

The collapse was like a snowball rolling down a mountain, growing and accelerating. From 2013 to 2021, Venezuela's GDP declined by approximately 75%–80%, the most severe economic collapse in the past 45 years caused by non-war factors, surpassing the scale of the Great Depression in the U.S. and the Soviet Union's disintegration. By 2021, 95% of Venezuelans lived below the income poverty line, with 77% living in extreme poverty.

In August 2018, on the eve of the currency reform of the Venezuelan “Bolívar,” the country's annual inflation rate had already exceeded 48,000%. In just four months, the black market exchange rate of Bolívar to USD plummeted from 1 million:1 to about 7 million:1, rendering banknotes nearly worthless.

Amidst this ongoing collapse, Venezuelans discovered RuneScape. At that time, the in-game currency “gold” in Old School RuneScape (hereafter OSRS) was approximately 1–1.25 million:1 against USD, far more valuable and stable than the Bolívar.

Although OSRS was launched in 2013, it is actually a fork of the RuneScape version from August 2007. The company behind the game, Jagex, attempted to reverse player loss and negative reactions to updates by bringing the old version back into the new era.

This attempt unexpectedly succeeded, and OSRS continued to develop, keeping RuneScape's IP vibrant. The effort also seemed destined — it was an old version playable via web browser, with modest hardware requirements, allowing many Venezuelan players to flood into the virtual world to work and survive.

A YouTube video from February 2018 shows an old clip of someone playing OSRS on a Canaima laptop with only 2GB of RAM. In the 2010s, the Venezuelan government distributed millions of free Canaima computers to students to aid learning.

Who would have thought that knowledge couldn't change these children's fate in the face of national decline, but these computers, with limited functions, provided some relief in their struggle for survival.

Venezuelan players had already started using OSRS to make a living as early as 2017 or even earlier. In September 2017, a Reddit post teaching OSRS players how to hunt Venezuelan players in the “East Dragon Area” went viral and became an important meme in OSRS history:

“East Dragon Area” refers to the eastern part of the “Wilderness” in OSRS, where a monster called “Green Dragon” spawns. Venezuelan players occupied this area from 2017 to 2019. They repeatedly slaughtered dragons, selling the dragon bones and hides on the RuneScape trading market for gold, then converting OSRS gold into Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies for cashing out.

According to an August 2017 article by user “fisherman” on Steemit, killing green dragons for an hour could earn about 500,000 OSRS gold, roughly $0.5. This method of making money once made headlines in Venezuelan newspapers:

High-level players would also hunt another winged giant snake boss, “Zulrah,” boosting hourly income to $2–$3. Such hourly wages already exceeded what most college-educated Venezuelans earned.

Years ago, during the peak of Venezuelan players making money in OSRS, several English media outlets interviewed them. The interviewees generally earned over $100 per month from OSRS, while their parents earned about $10. They saw OSRS as a mainstream way to earn money, enough to support their families and protect their earnings from Bolívar devaluation.

Just like in Hong Kong, where many Filipina domestic helpers fill household labor needs, Venezuelan players in OSRS fill the labor gap of repetitive monster-killing and gathering. Besides dragon and snake hunting, they also do skill training, item crafting, and even help others level up or train skills. However, unlike Hong Kong helpers who casually hang out on the streets drinking coffee, Venezuelan players, due to Jagex's crackdown on real-world trading of game items, use multiple burner accounts to avoid bans, similar to how cryptocurrency users use burner addresses to prevent phishing.

In March 2019, Venezuela experienced a nationwide blackout. During those days, the most loyal dragon slayers lost their supply of dragon bones, causing prices to spike sharply.

Attitudes toward these Venezuelan gold farmers are mixed with love and hate. On one hand, most Venezuelan players are genuine “manual” players, unlike those from other countries who can afford to run large-scale operations in studios; they earn gold by fair, manual gameplay just like everyone else, purely for survival. Sometimes, more casual players even believe that the presence of Venezuelan players improves their gaming experience, as they can enjoy the game without spending much money.

On the other hand, such profit-driven behavior inevitably affects the experience of regular players and the game's economy. The actions of Venezuelan players trying to survive in OSRS impact the game's ecosystem. Over the years, opinions on Reddit about Venezuelan players have been heated, with both malicious anonymous attacks and warm support.

Until, eventually, Venezuelan players left.

Escape

Today in the OSRS world, only legends of Venezuela remain, and the days of gold farmers are gone.

Since 2023, Venezuelan players have gradually left OSRS. As Venezuela's economy continues to collapse, the price of OSRS gold has also fallen. The relentless bots have entered the scene, competing with manual Venezuelan players, causing a surge in gold production and a corresponding decline in gold prices. Currently, OSRS gold is about 1 million:0.16–0.2 USD.

For Venezuelan players, gold farming hasn't stopped; they have simply moved to more cost-effective games like Tibia, Albion OL, World of Warcraft, and others, continuing to seek survival in virtual worlds.

But some ask, “Is this way of life right?” Some players have resolutely left these virtual worlds and even their home countries.

According to recent data, about 7.9 million Venezuelans have fled the country this year, marking one of the largest refugee crises in Latin America and worldwide. In international media, some interviews feature Venezuelans who escaped by earning money through OSRS.

José Ricardo, an OSRS gold middleman, profits by buying and reselling OSRS gold. A few years ago, he earned between $800 and $1,200 per month. He invests these profits into cryptocurrencies and has enough money to vacation in Brazil, Colombia, and Trinidad and Tobago. He still lives in Venezuela, but that is just one option; he doesn't want his life to be confined to one place or one thing.

Victor Alexander Rodriguez started working with his sister in early 2017, playing 14 hours daily in OSRS to support their family. When they first started, they discussed, “One day, we will leave.” They worked hard, saving $500 in OSRS, and in 2018, they went to Peru. Later, he became a security guard earning a higher salary than he did gold farming in OSRS. During his leisure time, he occasionally logs into OSRS on his phone, but now he is truly a player enjoying the game.

But not every escape story is so rosy. Bran Castillo described his friend's experience—he made enough money in OSRS to go to Peru, continued playing there, but the income was sufficient in Venezuela, yet unsustainable in Peru. On Reddit, Venezuelan players have answered questions about this: their public services, though flawed (the most absurd being their first login to OSRS was via mobile data because their broadband copper wire was stolen), generally cost little and mainly helped them meet basic needs.

There are even darker rumors that some Venezuelan female OSRS players, after fleeing the country, don't know how to sustain themselves and have resorted to sex work…

OSRS players have a saying, “This game never ends; you're not leaving, just taking a break.”

The most touching blessing I have seen is, “I hope one day, we have nothing to worry about outside of the game, just enjoy it.”

Epilogue

The connection between Venezuela and the cryptocurrency industry is deep and complex. Today, we discuss Maduro's potential Bitcoin reserves of up to 600,000 BTC, analyze why the “Oil-backed Coin” issued by Venezuela failed, and explore how USDT has become a widely adopted local currency, affecting the economy and daily life…

But this time, when we try to tell the “human” stories instead of macro industry phenomena, we see how cryptocurrency and a 25-year-old game have helped Venezuelans solve their livelihood issues. In the virtual world, intertwined with emotions and battles, they fight just to survive in reality or escape that cursed fate.

Without cryptocurrencies crossing the barriers of geography, language, and culture, and forming a global consensus of value, and without a trusted settlement layer, the stories of OSRS and Venezuela might never have happened.

Whether struggling to maintain a collapsing life in the virtual world or escaping both virtual and real worlds to chase new hopes, these seemingly personal daily choices actually drive industry progress.

Their stories fade away in OSRS, passing by like outsiders in the crypto industry, quietly leaving, yet behind these stories lies the true hardship and bitterness behind industry progress.