The Year RuneScape Went Bankrupt

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RuneScape and Jagex were once very close to closing their doors forever. In today's video we discuss one of the darkest periods in RuneScape history and the horrible update that technically saved the game.
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Visual Sources:
2011 Ranging Guild Footage - • Ranging Guild Lure com...
2011 Wilderness Ditch - • runescape wilderness b...
2011 Party Room Footage - • Getting Red partyhat f...
2011 Deep Wilderness PKing - • runescape 2011 pking
RuneScape’s Servers go down - • ags gf connection lost
RuneScape Bot Footage - • Rsbot - Powerbot Pro S...
Wilderness Riots 2006 - • Runescape Wilderness R...
Bot Nuke Before After - • Before and After Bot N...
Soup plays the Squeal of Fortune - • Runescape Update - Squ...
2011 RuneFest Footage - • RuneFest 2011: Highlig...
Mod Mark Gerhard in Jagex - • Inside Jagex Games Stu...
RSBuddy Footage - • Botting on Runescape t...
Rune Mysteries Quest - • Runescape: Rune Myster...
Barbed Bow Footage - • RuneScape - Barbed Bow...
2012 Ban Screen - • RuneScape Ban Lifted i...
2011 Wilderness PKing - • GF Full Torva 2college...
Loyalty Programme Shop - • Runescape loyalty shop
Money Pouch Footage - • Runescape Coin pouch u...
More Money Pouch Footage - • RuneScape ~ Toolbelt &...
The Crucible Trailer - • RuneScape Behind the S...
Crucible Duplication Glitch - • [200M/H] The Crucible ...
2011 Duel Arena Footage - • RuneScape - Duel arena...
Crucible Gameplay - • Runescape - The Crucib...
Max Cash Glitch - • RuneScape - Max cash D...
King Black Dragon - • Runescape King Black D...
Mod Reach in-game - • 200 meters cook with M...
Starrychelx Squeal of Fortune - • Squeal of Fortune | Ru...
Silentc0re opens the Squeal of Fortune - • RuneScape Squeal of Fo...
Blacksmiths Outfit - • RuneScape Blacksmith's...
A Friend uses the Squeal of Fortune - • Loot from 100 squeal o...
Solomon’s General Store User Interface - • Runescape | Solomon st...
Customizing Outfit in Solomons Store - • Solomon Store, Micro-t...
2011 Christmas Event - • RuneScape Christmas Ev...
Bandos in 2011 RuneScape - • Runescape - Bandos Com...
Botany Bay - • RuneScape Botany Bay! ...
2012 Hybrid PKing - • Exiled Hybridding ⅠⅠⅠ ...

[@ColonelloRS]

Grab yourself an Iconic Runescape Figure! crumb.store/discount/NELLO20?ref=nello or code 'NELLO20’ on checkout for 20% off this week only!

[@jeaton8023]

Great videos bro ,but I always think these are shit and it annoys me sorry

[@Semirotta]

No, I dont think I will buy garbage. Theres plenty of garbage in the world and these things are something that should not be created.

[@DerKnusperhase]

its insane to see this in numbers. how greedy and money/consumer focues society is and how many people are willing to break law and terms or services. the demand must be ludacris. i quote the video: the playerbase HALFED. one bot usually covers the need of 2 people so maybe ..70 percent of all people where doing RMT xxD but 99 percent of all people in all games complain how bad bots and RMT is. its like in reallife prisons. statistics show that over 80 percent of all inmates are claiming that they are innocent xxxxxxxxxD

[@typerightseesight]

I hate how dungeoneering wasn't Stellar dawn because it was suppose to be. as far as I am concerned.

[@9mmboobgun]

Ordered two of the Jad figures with the code, never recieved my order and the company doesnt respond whenever i try to contact them.. note: i've been trying for almost a month now... Can someone tell me if this is actual a real company or if its a scam? I want my money back..

[@djexwacky1390]

Im just gonne say it. If osrs didn't release, runescape in general would have been a thing of the past for several years now. 100%

[@WowOafus]

But RS3 is their money maker. Even with a fraction of the players, it makes more than osrs

[@BWallin]

Exactly. Osrs has more daily active players while RS3 bring in the most amount of Jagex's revenue ​@WowOafus

[@hemmoau]

​@@BWallindoes RS3 account for their operating revenue, or their profit? I would believe that RS3 skin releases are when jagex posts the largest profits, but surely the reliability of OSRS subscriptions is what keeps the business ticking over (there are 4x+ as many OSRS players as RS3).

[@jkman9828]

@@hemmoau As someone who played RS3 until 2022 on a daily basis, Let me tell you, You've got no idea what a metric shit-ton of whales RS3 has, without a shred of doubt with it's around 20k active players it still pulls in A LOT more money than OSRS does in subs.

[@bourky93]

@@WowOafusno shot

[@cupur]

never knew squeal of fortune was such a necessary evil..

[@baldrian22]

me neither.

[@blackwng]

i just dont understand how a game with such a small team could go bankrupt? literally just paying labor and server services crazy.... and definitely werent paying for good servers...

[@MusicalRadiation]

@@blackwng Ever heard about server costs?

[@blackwng]

@@MusicalRadiation man thats half my message wtf lmao

[@MusicalRadiation]

@@blackwng well I meant that server costs can be just so insanely high that even a small team can easily go bankrupt

[@slayermusiq1]

2011 was also the year when all RS videos on KZbin were getting copyright claimed

[@CalvodeMiel]

wasn't that a phishing tactic? or just claiming phishing channels

[@spiritofnex]

Yeah, these were dark times for RuneScape. I remember them well. As much as I hate mtx, it did save the game.

[@malinko35]

It KILLED the game. But it birthed OSRS.

[@KFC_Manager]

Mtx and eoc is what killed runescape

[@WoWUndad]

​@@malinko352006scape getting 10000 players signed up for castlewars beta in 2010,2011 birthed osrs

[@spiritofnex]

@@KFC_Manager EoC killed it, but osrs saved it overall. Even still, 10k+ daily players isn't anything to scoff at in terms of MMO's.

[@spiritofnex]

@@malinko35 EoC killed RuneScape, not mtx. EoC is the reason we got OSRS. Both of these came out very close together, so it's extremely easy to lump them together, but the reason I had so many friends quit (many of whom still haven't returned) is because of EoC. We didn't like Squeal or Solomon's Store, but it wasn't the reason most people who quit did so.

[@netstormuk]

OSRS thanks you for taking the hit RS3, like an older sibling.

[@davemeade4371]

What are you on about? 80+% of the updates they rolled to rs2 have been since rereleased- with less structure. We had soul wars cape, but it came from a grandmaster quest. The game is following the same path as last time, with less content that I enjoy. Dungeoneering was the golden age of rs2, Hate to break it to you.

[@netstormuk]

@@davemeade4371 I see words, but they make 0 sense. Good day.

[@Shortdood]

Yet OSRS has the highest playercount its ever had@@davemeade4371

[@TPKPatchy]

​@@davemeade4371 Not following most of this, but I do miss dungeoneering.

[@DYLANBROCHILL]

What are you on about? ​@@davemeade4371

[@TacoAPC]

22 years of playing runescape and playing through all of these events its heartbreaking to see (although not surprising) that so many updates that negatively impacted me were solely because of money

[@Aaron-zu3xn]

i stopped playing before they added the ditch you have to click to hop people would get robbed there for their dwarf multicannon someone would pretend to trade you and pull you over the line and instakill you,i come back and i'm having a blast but haven't got to raiding yet i just give out free gold in VWB302

[@doughvahkiin2885]

I mean it sounds like there might not have been a runescape for you to play for 22 years otherwise

[@Braunschweider]

It is true that the lack of bots made a lot of resources scarce hence expensive I strived through that but EOC (first to comment it in '24) was the final straw even for me... The simple OSRS hp and tick-attack system is so old that it had become unique, special attacks and switching comes as a natural technique and makes the game skill-based, although RNG-dependant

[@MsUltrafox]

I made a lot of cash thanks to that Nuke. I bought as many items as I could and sold them off 1 week later for a lot more. And I did the same with the campfire update. Bought 40K magic logs and sold 30K of them on the day of the launch, made a good profit, and used the other 10K myself to get 99 Firemaking and enough charms for 99 Summoning.

[@TundrousOfficial]

Weirdest thing is, now feels like that time in 2011 where they didnt ban people... Bots are everywhere. I feel like they -are- still banning bots, but not to the level they were before in order to keep that shiny 200k playercount for investors since theyre selling the company

[@GAMMA_AF]

Skill issue. Just start botting then.

[@ChanDawg86]

Why did you cross out "are"?

[@StyxByrd]

Over half of the player base was bots you say? What exactly has changed since this statement still stands today?

The amount of bots in RS3 is much lower. Probably mostly because gp is virtually worthless there compared to OSRS.

[@Cretaal]

​@ They're talking about OSRS. There's a whole ecosystem of bots competing against bots there.

[@nathanbucciarelli8043]

This video had me listening so intently I left late for work…😂 great video, I was one of the players who quit because of the squeal of fortune. Really interesting to know If it wasn’t for that dumb wheel I wouldn’t have a years play time collectively on my osrs accounts. So end of the day, thanks squeal 😂

[@soundscaperelaxation2571]

Very happy you have been uploading so frequently, can you interview any of the mods like Shauny did? That would be amazing

[@chriseftoski3301]

I started in 08… i had no idea this was happening…. Or even any of it actually… your account has brought so much insight into the player base and many glitches I could’ve tried. Cheers

[@liampaish272]

youve been on fire recently dropping all these videos! found a singular frame of an old git at 4:13 ahaha

[@NocturnalPyro]

3:04 I really wanted that Vorkath one, but the bloody shipping cost is literally more than the price of the figurine, which is completely outrageous to me, even if it's shipped from america to europe.

[@johntim5293]

That loyalty program sounds like World of Warcrafts trader’s tenders.

[@OfficialRamZ]

and ironically enough, Ironman Mode, having many of the same restrictions of no free trade, is a very popular mode these days.

[@-bubby9633]

The difference is choice vs force. Ironman mode is popular BECAUSE it is special and a new experience. Most ironman players also have a main that is a normal account

[@FirestormDDash]

Amazing I started around the downfall start. School and bored. Game was the perfect interest for me. And really, the squeal wheel showed me how bad the odds are. Made me immune to rs3 treasure hunter and gambling 😅

[@jasonbored8319]

2023-2024 You can bot as much as you want. The moment you buy gold you are BANNED 😂😂😂

[@gravegaming2023]

Wym

[@Last_Brew]

Literally that’s how it is now

[@TheDragonLegacy]

Nice to see not much has changed.

[@justineb]

Nothing like a colonello vid to lift my spirits 😢 it’s been a rough week

[@comicdude1996]

I will be praying that God helps you.

[@Whurlpuul]

I feel you bud, keep your head up.

[@KoraOSRS]

Chin up brother, you're not alone

[@WerAllFromHere132]

Subscribed! Been binging these vids for a while!!

[@rickfromDONE]

Ah the year I botted 45-99 thief, soulwars for 85-99 range, auto clicked 99 magic lol

[@aarons6935]

You're garbage.

[@albanybestdrumline]

The just had to be there to understand 😂😂 I had 3 laptops going none stop bottling 😂

[@rickfromDONE]

@@albanybestdrumline ahahaha fr man I was in hs, finally figured out girls liked me, played sports, worked out and had a social life (none of which apply now) but I loved the game so I'm like well lemme get gains so I can play

[@byever1]

Should mention that jagex made almost 13m off of mtx in 2012. From their financial statement. It's 34m in 2021. 😂

[@libertyprime2852]

I remember bot nuke day. I was like 10 years old.

[@redfinite27]

I like how this botfest era is the one people are like "yeah golden years of runescape, should release a server in that era"

[@andrewevans7992]

2008-2011 pre eoc was the best era lol

[@kyotodreams3306]

@@andrewevans7992facts.

[@OrphanCrippler69bb]

I'd rather play with bots then play a cashgrab

[@goodgreeter3059]

loving your uploads lately! Keep them coming!

[@ColonelloRS]

Thank you! Will do!

[@CoachKevanKillsit]

It’s a good thing botting isn’t out of control anymore. Could you imagine if it was and Jagex was trying to sell the company? It would be like they would have no reason to ban the bots. What a situation that would be.

[@mopsity3]

I need what your smoking. Everything is infested with bots gotr, nex, toa, nightmare ,etc etc. What game you playing?

[@matthewsoules7064]

​@@mopsity3obviously heavy sarcasm.

[@bluburryyumyum1367]

I need whatever YOU are smoking, that sarcasm slapped the shit outta you and you didn't even notice.

[@sythex92]

I'm sorry, HAD a huge bot problem?

[@Lasto1766]

I would easily want wilderness and free trade banned if that would make those annoying bots disappear for good.

[@pawkisser]

sounds like osrs right now. bots everywhere on mems and f2p, none get banned.

[@dudzzey]

I played in 06 just before GE and into 2014 your content is nuts cuz I never knew this game was this deep 😂 I'm in a rabbit hole with your videos lately ❤ good work

[@CharlieGetsGnarly]

Happy New Year Conello

[@ColonelloRS]

Happy new year!

[@ARealPain]

They should remove free trade today. We got the GE today. Put back in the loan system. But keep drop trading. So people using alts can still trade with themselves. But it’ll be much, much easier to spot mules/botters.

[@Rune_Daddy69]

always a good day when there's a new colonello vid. Thank you as always.

[@ColonelloRS]

Glad you enjoyed it! :D

[@amped126]

I spent 800$ USD on the squeal…. 99 summoning was quick as shit 🤣

[@davemeade4371]

I got 99 summoning on a double XP weekend and never spend more than a membership fee. Grats tho

[@iamtheonewhoyoulove]

you are a very very very veryt small minoity, most people spend little to none, its whales like you that keep it going, so technically its your fault

[@PhenomRom]

@@davemeade4371same same

[@blackwng]

@@davemeade4371the waterfiend days

[@tylerdavis404]

Over half of the player base today are bots sadly

[@cestandmuni3849]

Very high quality RuneScape video. Pressed the like button and the subscribe button

[@ColonelloRS]

Much appreciated!

[@ryanmcclanaghan4440]

Happy new year!!!

[@ColonelloRS]

Happy New Year!

[@dudzzey]

Was so happy when OSRS was announced got back on and made it a goal to get mt quest cape took 3 months of 3-8 hour days but shit fresh out of high school with barely a job was easy! Ran right to GE to spam quest cape emote 😂❤ the memories will be there forever man!

[@Rowrin]

Man, the more I binge Runescape history videos it seems every few minutes there's a devastating bug that went live lol. As a software developer myself, I'm really curious as to their programing and testing practices.

[@Bergsen_Bun-sense]

That Silentc0re clip.... so nostalgic.

[@charleslentz1962]

I'm not a fan of microtransactions (who is, honestly?) but I'm glad the game still exists. If I have MTX to thank for that, then so be it. Thank you to mtx for saving the game.

[@DukeofAthens]

Hey Colonello, been subbed and watching for a long long time, just wanted to let you know there is a pretty severe mic hiss sound that can easily be fixed in audacity or whichever program you use. Some easy googling or a reply and I can help you out :) Love the videos always.

[@ColonelloRS]

I'll check it out, thank you!

[@DukeofAthens]

@@ColonelloRS if you just record 1-2s of nothing before you talk you can sample it in audacity and it will clean it up for the audio you are talking in. That's the way to do it 6 years ago, I'm sure there's some AI bs that can do it better nowadays.

[@MichaelRyanLee]

I remember being able to suicide bot around this time and also I was able to recover other peoples accounts by claiming I would buy membership if I was able to get the account back lol. I always wondered why it actually worked and now I know… the accounts did eventually get rolled back tho lol

[@Stijn23789]

They had an older version with the money pouch available to test this on. Does that mean 07 wasn’t the only backup they had as they claimed?

[@WoWUndad]

They have backups , they are straight up liars and tbh it didn't even take that long for an amateur private server to get 2006scape up

[@pallettown3358]

Rs3 walked so OSRS could run

[@AaronWJ]

There was a glitch in 2008-2010 where we would be able to catch unlimited kingly imps in mos le'harmless. We would all be on the phone counting down to 3 and have to all click on the imp at the same time. The good ole days..we were so rich.

[@LordBaileyDev]

They still have yet to address the problem in parties.

[@blackzero786]

Huh hard to think in a few months my 20 year cape will be available.

[@ImpossibleLink]

Hey look the bots are still here 10 years later at full speed. ' We are aware of the boss high scores ' 2 months later the same bots still top page....

[@OMG-lh9ro]

somebody has to do a video about how half of mains currently bot

[@The2006Scaper]

Ahh yes back when everyone was botting dungeoneering for a week straight with no bans. TBH I loved this era LMAO

[@robertsaget6918]

I mined so much ess that I'm still a billionaire in RS3 over a decade later

[@alyssaangel1094]

reflection bots were unbelievably OP. i botted pretty much straight to max and dungeoneering to around level 90ish before I started playing it legitly

[@SentientSandwich]

Reldo better watch out, "runescape historian", indeed!

[@derek3482]

The intro to this video sounds just about identical to the game today, at least in regards to botting.

[@darksasuke300]

around @8:45 is when i actually gave up on RS2. Glad i found out about OSRS, sadly not on release. But at least 7-8 years ago. :D

[@xhcgamerx7602]

"When holding in your hand you can REALLY FEEL AND SEE THE QUALITY 😉"- colonello 2024 sussy

[@99ownage9]

I guess people who tried botting did it on f2p and didn’t try to become a member to do it after nuke day, everyday people still tried to bot, they just got banned . 😂

[@stephenp4285]

That's about the time I left, but it wasn't for THAT reason. Facebook Games by a particular company that starts with Z, were getting pretty popular and I took a break until 2016. I even told the Runescape page I was thinking about coming back. I got an encouraging reply from the page, and came back. Now these days I spend a majority of my time in Old School. The people there just have more heart. And I was getting frustrated fighting RS3 Vorkath on Hard mode. I may come back there, but I'm not quite ready for the next DXP event. Maybe the one after that. I have 120 slayer on RS3.

[@tylerhassey5210]

Dude I feel like the hitting problem will never get resolved, it used to be that members worlds were pretty bot free, maybe like a few here and there, but 301 was like a pandemic for bots, now I can hop on any world and at least find one low level bot farm somewhere near varrock

[@JimMilton-ej6zi]

You can never remove bots, but you can remove their visibility, and i feel like that's where jagex needs to go, all they need to do is remove bots from player economies, remove their trade abilities when trading to non-bots, and hide bot accounts from the player screen.

[@The_Real_Uncle_Ruckus]

Yeah, i knew Jamflex was intentionally doing nothing about the bots, just like now in OSRS

[@DefCatofficial]

Would love to get in contacr with ya about some music and sfx man!

[@MercifullUK]

A wild Mercifull spotted at 4:14 haha.

[@megadbow7379]

So EoC was a desperation attempt to bring players that backfired horribly? (EoC Nov 2012, Squeal of fortune Feb 2013) Dude...

[@MountaindewM]

I think this shows the sad truth of game development. Game companies and developers would love nothing more than to have their game have NO micro transactions and no bots and everyone play and them make great profit this way. Once that doesn't happen or can't happen they are forced down other roads OR just close up shop and move on. There are things they did to the game that I feel didn't make the game more successful but took away what people loved in the game. EOC still is one of those updates. I think it's a cool thing but with the tick system and how the game works, it just doesn't feel like other games that use abilities. I have done high level content in WoW and did some high level content in Runescape back in the day but now I just haven't put in the effort to back into it as much. Also feels odd having to spend billions to get the best abilities and stuff.

[@Luckylifelogs]

It was the introduction of bonds I knew when they were 5m one day they'd be 100m

[@Equitine]

I remember the crucible dup even managed to do a little bit of it myself lol.

[@PacificEgg]

Idk who the IT guy with dreads is, but he's famous to me because of Collonelo

[@josephwilliams1069]

Ohh It’s 2023! I know this one 😂Even some the clips in the Video are from this year(2023) you see forestry backpack and the pking clips too

[@PlagueDoctorscp049]

You can still do anything you want in osrs there are thousands of bots who don’t get banned and osrs vets get perm muted without any chance of reconciliation

[@B_parker122]

The sad part is no one blames the players, there are plenty of people that complain about all this botting and people keep buying gold.

[@Revoku]

Makes me wonder if blizzard had a similar idea and that's why they ban wave instead of constant ban, you ban wave, cheater buys another acct plays for 6 months with cheats, repeat

[@gonnabetakendownsoon3488]

Watched it all it was a good vid

[@lutrueson9000]

This vid is Monday at Jagex

[@fugglebuggle7404]

explains alot about the bot issue and ahkers today

[@JDilly1]

Good to know the dark days are behind us now the playerbase is only 40% bots

[@beaujansen6849]

Thanks for the vid

[@belstar1128]

i quit runescape in 2011 i had no problem with runescape and it seemed like the game was going into a good direction but i finally got a decent pc and faster internet and i wanted to play wow. but i found out wow was already going down hill and despite me being a noob after a few months i was getting bored because wow often has 1 year + of no updates and i did everything the game had to offer so i wanted to try runescape again .but they announced evolution of combat and a lot of other old mmos i was interested in like starwars galaxies and city of heroes got shut down during that period .and microtransactions started getting mainstream. so i think this era was a true dark age for mmos

[@Aaron-zu3xn]

they were able to add a character to the of their packets from the client

[@9mmboobgun]

Ordered two of the Jad figures with the code, never recieved my order and the company doesnt respond whenever i try to contact them.. note: i've been trying for almost a month now... Can someone tell me if this is actual a real company or if its a scam? I want my money back..

[@MannyMacc1]

I’m convinced it’s about 75% of player base is bots in 2023-2024.

[@PsychicSploob]

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm really glad they implemented shady microtransactions if it meant OSRS would have never come to be lol

[@Noface121]

So when you think about it, cheaters and gold sellers are what caused all of the worst stuff.

[@AaronGameDeveloper]

Great video as always Nello !

[@3dplays5]

yay new video!!!!!

[@nicholaslogan6840]

So this is why I didn't get banned for experimenting with botting cowhides... a year later I picked up the game on that account for real and it's almost 15 years old now lol

[@hellothere2214]

I remember back in 2007 someone in my middle school was sell gold 7$ a mill. I was broke then, I'm broke now. 😢

[@courtnallbird4739]

When I first got into RS. My friends older brother farmed blue dragons and sold 1m/per $20. I thought I was overpaying lol. I was beside chessy trying to best her on trying to merch, but she always made me go lower than her and bought me out at a certain point lol. Damn those were the days

[@andrewg1173]

Previously up to 60% of the player base was bots making up 10% of Jagex's revenue. Seems very little has changed.

[@TheBuddaBrot]

I cant want for Jagex to be acquired then they can start banning again. You should make a video about the current situation

[@ethan1305]

bro I remember when you had 9min vids, 3min ads

[@ColonelloRS]

I can confidently say that I have never had a 3 minute sponsor in a 9 minute video :)

[@Blitzcomin]

another vid about RS3 players paying for us OSRS players

[@ZombieWolfe]

This made it seem that rs3 was sacrafised to make osrs. Though it makes me wonder if rs3 won't be worth it anymore, what happens tho the accounts?

[@codyrudenski6241]

Those figures are dope, but for $85 bucks ill just import a model into a 3d printing software, send it to a friend, give them $20 to print it, and paint the thing myself.

[@NexusUwU541]

yeah but this is happening to osrs rn too just bots on bots on bots

[@jaaydeee9052]

this tell you jamflex can get rid of the bots in osrs cuz they already did it once they just dont want to

[@TwistedJesus666]

The dark times have never left don’t be fooled

[@SoHowYouDoin]

I thought 2009 was the return of wilderness it came back, and they got rid of bountry hunter, which was the cave thing then they put it bh in the wilderness they just got rid of bh completely in 2011. I have no idea why they called it "The return of the wildernes" when pking was already going on in the willdy.

[@ColonelloRS]

The Wilderness was a safe zone until February of 2011. Although its true Bounty Hunter existed before then, it was an optional minigame that I'd say is very different from the Wilderness that existed in 2007 and prior :) secure.runescape.com/m=news/the-wilderness-and-free-trade-return

[@toxy3580]

Bot nuke day aka the day jacmob gave all his info over hahaha. Bet Jacmob already had the job.

[@b1chgotk03db4rnz3y]

Haha I remember abusing the crucible dupe still got a vid of it on my channel good times

[@DaleWrecker]

Don't forget to keep asking to bring more rs3 stuff to osrs.