Gold farming attracts Venezuelans at the Runescape Old School.
Times are very difficult in Venezuela. There is no other way to say it. The cost of food and medicine has skyrocketed under the galloping inflation of the nation. The government seems less interested in solving these problems than in cracking down on the dissidence that has been spilling over the last six months.
Many people in Venezuela have resorted to growing gold at the old Runescape school, where a newspaper published an article on how to do it about three weeks ago. Now, this week, someone posted a guide in the old school's Runescape subreddit that effectively turned anyone in the nation into an object of the game, regardless of whether they were growing gold.
Yes, cultivating gold is hateful, against the rules of the game and will cause someone to be expelled. But the wave of anger in the Runescape community this week is not in the gold producers, but in the people who kill them (in the game).
"It is not this post that disappoints me, it is the blatant racist and 'daring' comments left by people who have no idea what it must be like to live in a situation where their economy is collapsing," wrote a moderator who closed the thread five days ago. The "guide" seems to have pointed out where the main farming sites were, so anyone in that area, particularly killing green dragons, was a candidate to be attacked.
Venezuelan gold producers are in the wild PvP area harvesting green dragons, selling the hides and bones that fall on the Runescape Grand Exchange. That coin calculates around 50 cents per hour, and more advanced players get around $ 2 or $ 3. Believe it or not, the Runescape 2007 gold is traded on sites along with Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.
This post states that $ 2 or $ 3 per hour is more than the income of "the majority of professionals with university education in the country". This story in The New York Times last week mentioned that inflation has sunk the value of the Venezuelan currency by half the dollar, effectively reducing the minimum wage gains to $ 5 per month.
"I'm Venezuelan and I'm deeply hurt to read some of the comments in this thread, I've been part of this community since the old school came out and I've never seen so much hate and racism," wrote Redditor glow_party (in a comment moved to the top of the thread by the moderators).
"Let me tell you something, these people are doing everything they can to survive and have never done anything wrong," glow_party continued. "As a Venezuelan, I can say that the hatred towards my people is sad and something I never expected to come from this community."
Another user pointed out that a previous tactic, killing the boss known as Zulrah, paid someone $ 5 per day until the editor of Runescape Jagex thwarted what Zulrah dropped in response.
The courteously Venezuelan comments pointed out that the breeding of gold was against the Runescape rules (punishable by banning accounts) and some dismissed the guide as a joke. But a few seemed a matter of laughter, especially because he assumed that someone from Venezuela in the game was a gold farmer, making them kill in PvP despite not doing anything wrong.