Runescape Shark Prices Crash

Shark prices in runescape took a massive dive recently as the market became flooded. Speculation was rife was to the reason for such a sharp reduction in price - almost 50% reduction on the price of raw sharks. An unprecedented fall in prices and one that shook the merchanting world.

Today, 1st May 2006, Jagex make a post about bots and real world item trading and the fact that they banned 8000+ accounts last week. The reason for the bans was centered around bots and the fact that 6billion runescape gold was confiscated and taken out of circulation.

6billion gold from the proceeds of selling materials collected up by bots. In this case it looks like the shark market got affected quite badly and put many honest players effort of accumulating the sharks via traditional fishing pretty much to waste.

The fact that 8000 or more account were banned should be good news, alas, that is not the case. The 8000 appears to be only a fraction of the bot infestion that has laboured over runescape for a good few months now. Though Jagex have now publicly announced the impact these bot users are having on the overall runescape economy.

In the short term, as many 1000s more accounts will be banned for similar bot abuse, my advice is to not be too hasty in selling off your shark stockpiles just yet. Jagex need some time to clear out more of the cheat accounts and may well find a way to prevent the serial abusers from infecting the overall runescape economy. Shark prices may recover, but they will not recover overnigt - it will take time.

Eventually, when the bot abuse is curbed and the damage reversed, the runescape economy will start to revert back to market forces rather than bot abuse distorting things.