Whether you like it or not, Jagex is taking its cues from majority stockholder Insight Venture Partners, the American investment group and 55% share holder in the British developer. Luckily for me, IVP is turning out to be a pretty predictable company. The path that RuneScape has taken is not unique, and is one used (rather successfully) by another well known publisher and investment of IVP: Nexon. So if you want to see where RuneScape’s cash shop will most likely evolve into, just take a look at Maplestory.
Maplestory also started its shop with gambling, followed by the introduction of a cosmetic only cash shop, blossoming into what it is today. So let’s take a look at what you might see in the cash shop of the future!
- 2x Experience: This is a given, and should it be included in the near future, completely unsurprising. After all, Jagex stated recently that they would be getting rid of bonus experience weekends just before they opened the cash shop. After all, why give the milk away for free when you can sell it at market?
- Cosmetic Pets: This is also a given. It is a cash shop, after all, and what would a cash shop be without the ability to say “I paid $10 on a virtual talking, floating pancake with cat ears.” I have no news that Jagex plans on adding a floating, talking pancake with cat ears into RuneScape but if they do, it was completely my idea.
- Bound Equipment: Remember how Jagex explained giving high level equipment in Squeal of Fortune? That’s right, it can’t be traded. If (and this is a big IF) Jagex does indeed update Solomon’s Store to include high end equipment, you can bet that you won’t be able to trade it. It will likely also be expensive relative to whether or not the item can be lost when you die.
- Many More Membership Bonuses: This one is a prediction of my own. Jagex has been running numerous membership bonuses designed to keep people subscribed longer (90-120 day membership card vanity items) and throughout months (bonus experience for members). Expect many more free items to come as a benefit of membership. This will likely include powerful equipment, following the rule stated above being bound to an account.
Just a reminder: These are all my predictions and may be completely wrong.
MMO Fallout 
Gamers need to open their eyes
This game has been going down hill ever since the introduction of Squeal of Fortune, well even more so from the time they decided it was a good move to get rid of the wild back in December of 2007, when that was the main reason the game itself was popular. Myself, I was never really into the PvP scene RuneScape had to offer. I was more into hanging out with my real life friends, and skilling and having a good time making new friends in the meantime, about the time JaGeX implemented all this 4 or so years later most of my friends quit except for 2, I still played because they did, but the moment JaGeX decided to offer real life money explicit content, both of last best friends in real life quit. I at that point pretty much left too, as most of my friends I met over the years did apart from even my real life friends.
TL;DR Version:
Basically RuneScape was doing ok until they removed wild in 2007, then after that it pretty much started it’s path down hill, and it didn’t help that stockholders took over for there own money gain.