Real-world trading

Real-world trading (aka. RWT) is the act of exchanging items or services within for items or services outside of the game (aka. the real world). It is most often associated with players purchasing coins, weapons and armour, and resources like coal with real-world money, but can also extend to services, such as paying a person to complete a quest for you. Legally speaking, the game characters and items are the property of Jagex and therefore cannot be considered property of the players.

While not officially added to the Rules of Conduct until after the release of, it was still considered against the rules as it is often associated with other rule-breaking activities including: scamming, botting/macroing, account sharing, multi-account interaction, and encouraging other players to break the rules.

We don't want players to be able to buy their way to success in. If we let players start doing this, it devalues for others. We feel your status in real life shouldn't affect your ability to be successful in.

Controversy
Jagex themselves were considered hypocrites in April 2010 for introducing an item known as the Flagstaff of Festivities to, which was unlocked by entering a special game code. The codes were emailed to players who had purchased tickets to an upcoming real-world event known as RuneFest 2010. This allowed players to pay real money for a unique, in-game weapon, albeit a weak one. Furthermore, this allowed players to sell their unused codes for in-game items, which is itself real-world trading. Jagex tried to defend themselves by saying that people were paying for tickets to the event rather than the item, and that the item was just a freebie. Similar promotions have occurred since then, each with related controversy.

Nearly two years later, on 28 February 2012, Jagex added a feature to known as the Squeal of Fortune (aka. SOF), which allowed players to spin a wheel each day to collect free in-game items. That alone caused controversy because none of the winnings were earned from intended gameplay. It didn't take much longer than a month for Jagex to monetize the SOF by allowing players to purchase spins with real-world money, a clear violation of their own rules of conduct. After receiving much criticism for this update, Jagex amendeded the real-world trading rule on 6 April, 2012, by removing the former policy. The new rule effectively permitted Jagex-to-player RWT, but still disallowed player-to-player RWT.