In the beginning, trading in real life was conducted informally. "You might buy some OSRS gold from a friend at or at school." Jacob Reed, an acclaimed creator of YouTube videos on RuneScape who goes by Crumb, wrote in an email to me. In the following years, demand for gold exceeded supply and some players were full-time gold farmers, or those who produce in-game currency which they sell to real money.

Internet-age miners had always accompanied by massively multiplayer online gaming, or MMOs that included Ultima Online or World of Warcraft. They even worked various text-based virtual universes, stated Julian Dibbell, now a technology transactions lawyer who used to write about virtual economies as a journalist.

In the past, many of these gold-miners were based in China. Some of them hunkered down in tiny factories, where they slaughtered virtual ogres and scavenged their corpses during 12-hour shifts. There were reports of the Chinese government employing prisoners to gold farm.

A lot of these players were similar to RuneScape gold. They played RuneScape when they were teenagers and look back fondly at the exaggerated graphics and kitschy soundtrack. Although the 20- and 30-year-olds had hours to spare when they were younger and had no responsibilities, they soon had obligations that went beyond schoolwork.