The game isn't easy. To increase a character's agility from 1 to 99, which is the highest level, it would take more than a week of uninterrupted play according to RuneScape gold a thorough guide that was released by the creator. Now that they had more than their typical allowances at the age of 18, players like Mobley who works in an information center, decided to skip the hassle of leveling up their characters and the expense of expensive items, and the sometimes tedious early parts to the game.

Others like Corne 21, a 21-year-old software developer from Arnhem, Netherlands, who did not want to reveal his last name, gambled on gold, and through it, the real world currency, on duels against other players. "I have a love for money. If it's in real life or in RuneScape it's nice to have," said the man in an email.

He buys much of his gold from middlemen, who buy gold in bulk from gold farmers and then sell it through websites like El Dorado or Sythe. Horn estimates he's spent between the 4,000-5,000 euro mark, which fuels what he believes at one moment was an addiction to gambling.

When players such as Corne or Mobley came back in RuneScape with the money and appetites of adulthood, the game's black market was booming. Players reported that there was a presence of Chinese gold-miners, but there were others profiting off RuneScape's renaissance: Venezuelans such as Marinez.

On March 12 of 2020, Marinez set out to enroll in a police academy in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela and to pursue a career in law enforcement. On buy rs07 fire cape the same day following, the Venezuelan government announced its initial two cases of COVID-19.