In RuneScape the black market economy that the gold farmers benefited from was relatively small--until 2013. Players had been dissatisfied with the extent to which the game had transformed since it was first released in 2001 OSRS Gold. So, they contacted Jagex to restore a prior version. Jagex released one from its archive, and users returned to what came to be called Old School RuneScape.

Many of them were similar to Mobley. They played RuneScape in their teens and reminisced fondly about the bold graphics and fun soundtrack. Even though these 20- to 30-year-olds were able to play for hours when they were younger but they had to take on responsibilities in addition to homework.

"People work, and have families potentially," said Stefan Kempe, another popular creator of videos on RuneScape which has nearly 200k subscribers and goes under the brand name SoupRS, in an interview. "It's one of the factors that limit how much they can play each day."

The game can be very tedious. To increase a character's agility from 1 to 99, which is the highest level, would take over a weeks of constant play in accordance with a detailed manual that was released by the creator. With more than just their teenage allowances, players like Mobley who works at data centers, decided to avoid the hassle of trying to level up their characters or the cost of expensive items, as well as the boring beginnings of the game.

Others, such as Corne an 21-year old software engineer of Arnhem, Netherlands, who has refused to reveal his name, but placed bets on gold, and by extension real-world currency, on duels with other players. "I have a love for money. If it's in real life or in RuneScape that is, money is good to have" said the man in the course of a telephone call.

He buys a large portion of his gold through intermediaries, who purchase gold in bulk from gold farmers and then sell it on websites like El Dorado or Sythe osrs accounts. Horn estimates that he's spent between 4,000 and 5,000 euros fueling what he believes at one time was a gambling addiction.