Former Runescape Dev Steals $100,000 Worth of In-Game Gold

Every time I hear Runescape is still a thing, I’m a little bit surprised. I mean, I know it’s still a thing, people still play it, but I kind of tuck it in the same mental shelf I store Neopets and Gaiaonline. Things that are things, even if they probably shouldn’t be things anymore.

But no, Runescape is still a thing. Such a big thing, in fact, that the police have been called in response to a claim that a former Jagex employee and moderator, Jed Sanderson (aka Mod Jed), has stolen upwards of 100 billion in-game coins through illicit means, which would be worth over $100,000 if sold on gold-selling marketplaces.

Here’s the story: an Old School Runescape player, known as mazrim_lol on Reddit, took to the aforementioned site to complain of a serious data breach that cost him 45 billion coins. Now, given that this is a java-based web game played mostly by kids, people were quick to dismiss him as being careless, insufficiently securing his account, or simply lying in order to get Karma or what have you. But then Jagex surprised the Runescape world and announced that, actually, yes, there was a data breach, and they had a pretty good idea who was at fault.

Because of the unusual details surrounding the case (namely, that it came from inside, and thus, Jagex is technically responsible), the company decided to take the unorthodox measure of actually returning the stolen gold: a move that’s very atypical, given how badly the game’s economy could be screwed up if they offered refunds every time some idiot was conned out of their coins.

And, yes, because of the immense real-world value of the coin, the police have been called into action to punish the responsible parties. Considering they have his address and name from when he was an employee, it shouldn’t be too hard to track him down.

Which is the anticlimactic way the great Runescape Heist ends.