1

Karitta Christina Zellerbach

Professor John Sanbonmatsu

IMGD 2001 Paper 3

March 2nd 2018

Capitalism, Aggression, and Race in RuneScape

RuneScape, a fantasy MMORPG developed by Jagex, currently boasts over 200 million

player accounts created and is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's largest

free MMORPG and the most-updated game (Jagex). Thus, as an influential medium through

which players experience culture, and as a wide social platform connecting players from around

the world, it has the power to make statements about society, and the structures, prejudices and

systems of power that exist within.

Contradictory to what may be suggested by the connotations of a “Free-to-play” (F2P)

game, consumerism is thriving in the world of RuneScape. Within the game exists “The Grand

Exchange”, a system where players can buy and sell items, without having to interact with one

other, or engage in any form of communication. It is all mediated through the interface of the

Grand Exchange. However, with the economy of RuneScape acting as a large component of the

game, the focus of many players suddenly shifts to the accumulation of material wealth, rather

than the other parts of the game, such as skilling, questing and cooperative play. This shift in

attention has become such that player demand allowed for the establishment of industries and

websites dedicated to “gold farming”, where workers spend hours accumulating gold and

material wealth in the game in order to sell it for real-world currency. Furthermore, while the

game is free, this is only to a very limited extent. The game offers a monthly subscription

2

package which gives players access to a wider variety of skills, quests, explorable areas and

much more. It also changes the label of free players to “members”, which creates a sense of

belonging to a superior group. However, it doesn’t stop there. RuneScape is very much a

“Pay-to-win” game, in that players can use real-world currency to obtain in-game advantages

over other players. Once again, this shifts the purpose of the game from enjoyment and

entertainment to status and domination, which occurs when developers capitalize on how players

can be incentivized. In RuneScape, players can buy cosmetic overrides, additional bank space,

“auras” that can be activated for special effects or combat bonuses and even “lamps” that will

give the player experience in a skill, reducing the time they need to spend on tedious tasks as

would be required otherwise. Once free of “Pay-to-win” microtransactions, RuneScape, like so

many other games, is now “being shaped, contained, controlled, and channelled within the

long-standing logic of a commercial marketplace dedicated to the profit-maximizing sale of

cultural and technological commodities.” (Kline et al, p. 21)

Moreover, the obsession with the accumulation of achievement diffuses into other parts

of the game, with the existence “power levelers”, who, similar to “gold farmers”, charge players

real-world currency to train their characters for them. This raises the question of why so many

RuneScape players are willing to outsource their play when it is supposed to be something

enjoyable. To answer this, it is vital to examine the way that RuneScape and other MMORPGs

blur the line between work and play. In a game like Runescape, which attempts to imitate the

real world's economic system, it comes as no surprise that such a system would also replicate the

delegation of tedious labor to those who will do it for less pay. As Marcuse argues for the

existence of an advanced industrial society, “it is necessary to achieve a libidinal cathexis of the

3

merchandise the individual has to buy (or sell), the services he has to use (or perform), the fun he

has to enjoy, the status symbols he has to carry” (Marcuse, p. 191). This is reflected in

RuneScape, as virtual society whose existence similarly requires their “uninterrupted production

and consumption” whereby “social needs must become individual needs, instinctual needs”

(Marcuse, p. 191). Thus, RuneScape must be capable of producing these needs, making players

invest their mental energy into all aspects of the game so that they can be controlled. Thus,

RuneScape not only requires mass production and consumption within the game mechanics but

furthermore, the consumption of the game itself, of its purchasable subscription. Thus,

RuneScape developers are “implicitly urging [players] to attain, sustain, or raise a certain level of

income in order to support the computer game playing habit” (Kline et al, p. 271), which

inadvertently or not, serves to continue the cycle of capital.

However, while Digital Play argues that “meeting the demands of marketing eventually

intersects with a “design” process” (Kline et al, p. 221), it seems that RuneScape has

transcended this, where marketing exists within the structure and mechanics of the game itself.

Perhaps leveling up skills has purposely been made tedious, with developers capitalizing on the

impatience of players, tempting them into purchasing additional features that will speed up the

process, promising a quicker route to in-game accomplishments, and by extension, player status.

Therefore, RuneScape has been created to produce consumer needs as “the commodification of

cultural experience is, above all else, an effort to colonize play in all of its various dimensions

and transform it into purely saleable form” (Kline et al, p. 284). For instance, additional bank

space can be bought so that players can store more items, trapping players in a cycle of

consumerist and materialist desires. Additionally, free players only have three spaces for “Grand

4

Exchange” transactions, whilst members have eight; this naturally makes it more difficult for

free players to trade items through the Grand Exchange, making them painfully aware that they

may very well be missing out on opportunities for more accumulation of wealth. Even additions

to the user interface, such as action bars, and loot statistics can be purchased, which allow the

player to progress faster and “enhance” the play experience. As a bourgeois artifact of late

capitalism, RuneScape exhibits “purposelessness for purposes dictated by the market” (Adorno

and Horkheimer, p. 65). Thus, RuneScape is a prime example of the commodification of play

that is, contradictory to designing a fun and worthwhile experience, aimed at creating “game

players who will also, simultaneously and of necessity, be game consumers” (Kline et al, p. 283)

With this understanding, it may be useful to look at the consequences of such a system.

Within RuneScape exists the “buying gf” phenomenon, where players advertise their desires to

purchase girlfriends using in-game currency. While this exists outside of the game mechanics, it

is facilitated through the game’s free trade and chat. Thus, we see the impact of the

commodification of play leading to the commodification of player interrelationships. When

everything in the game is commodified, players lose the desire and perhaps even the ability to

produce meaningful relationships, such as can be achieved through socialization within the

game. When capitalist and consumerist ideals are exploited in games, players view socialization

solely as the opportunity for trade. With this, interpersonal relationships become commodified

products just like the items in game and women are subject to this objectification, such that “the

body becomes a commodity as a manifestation or bearer of the sexual function” (Marcuse, p.

86). Moreover, it is important to note that the majority of cases in the “buying gf” trend occurs

between male players, many posing as female players, perhaps fulfilling some male fantasy that

5

wouldn’t occur otherwise, especially when 90% of the RuneScape player base is male (Jagex).

This case is a particularly interesting study, as it can be argued that this phenomenon had nothing

to do with the design of the game, but was rather solely a product of the desires of players. On

the other hand, it can also be argued and that this was encouraged through the inherent structure

of the game, which requires players to “learn to satisfy all [their] needs in terms of commodity

exchange” (Lukács, p. 91).

To examine this further, in Marx theory, a commodity is defined as “a thing which

through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind” and capitalism as a mode of

production requires “an immense accumulation of commodities” (Marx Capital, p. 27). I propose

that the “Grand Exchange” system has perpetuated this, as a form of commodity fetishism in

reification, where relations between people appear as “material relations between persons and

social relations between things” (Marx Capital, p. 48). In terms of RuneScape, “[the Grand]

exchange establishes [relations] directly between the products, and indirectly, through them,

between the [players]” (Marx Capital, p. 60). This perception of social relationships as economic

relationships among commodities exchanged in market trade in encouraged in RuneScape, where

in-game items are detached from the players who collected them and are seen to have inherent

value in themselves, rather than from the result of the labor performed to achieve them.

Furthermore, according to Marx, a commodity must also have “exchange value” (Marx Capital,

p. 27). Thus, if human companionship can be bought with in-game currency, then it too has

become a commodity in a devastating act of social alienation and estrangement. However,

perhaps the commodification of interrelationships is better attributed as a consequence of the

society of the spectacle, proposed by Guy Debord under Marxist theory, where life is the

6

“immense accumulation of spectacles” (Debord, 1). Defined as the “perfect image of the ruling

economic order”, the spectacle only “plans to develop is itself” (Debord, 14). Debord argues that

mass media is not the spectacle, but rather an instrument for its development, where in turn, the

spectacle is merely an instrument for capitalism to distract and pacify the masses. Debord’s

critical approach to the spectacle resonates with Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique of the culture

industry, and RuneScape is dutifully playing its role in the cycle of capital, which both the

spectacle and culture industry are concerned with maintaining. Furthermore, in the modern

capitalist society of the spectacle exists the “sale of “completely equipped” blocks of time”,

which includes “the sale of sociability itself” (Debord, 152). This is such that a person views

their own existence as a commodity, because they regard every human relation as a potential

business transaction. In this perspective where RuneScape can be regarded as the sale of a block

of time, we can see cultural hegemony asserting itself, as RuneScape acts not only as a

commodity in the cycle of capital, but as an effective mechanism that trains players to conform

to the system, rather than question it. RuneScape as a capitalist artifact is concerned with

ensuring that “the more [the player] accepts recognizing himself in the dominant images of need,

the less he understands his own existence and his own desires.” (Debord, 30), and thus acts as a

commodity that is “crucial for the subjugation of [player’s] consciousness” (Lukács, p. 86).

In continuation of Marxist theory as it relates to RuneScape, we can see the manifestation

of estranged labor, where labor “produces itself and the worker as a commodity” (Marx 1844, p.

29) in the existence “gold farmers”, who own nothing but labor to sell and thus are “the most

wretched of commodities” (Marx 1844, p. 28). Capitalism reduces labor to a commercial

commodity to be traded on the market and empowers itself through the exploitation of the

7

worker. This exploitation causes “gold farmers” to be alienated from one another, “the

estrangement of man from man” (Marx 1844, p. 32), which occurs as a result of the competitive

labor market that capitalism produces. Workers suffer from a sense of false consciousness, in

that they are pitted against one another, which combined with the cultivated and standardized

consumerist needs of RuneScape players who desire the accumulation of material wealth for the

cheapest price, continues to strengthen the forces of cultural hegemony. In this realization that is

as devastating as it is maddening, we see just how strongly capitalism has entrenched itself in

society and has consequently become a dominant part of our culture.

Moving away from Marxist theory, next is the examination of the gameplay mechanics

within RuneScape. While there exist a variety of skills available to the player, most seemingly

innocuous, such as “Farming”, “Cooking”, and “Smithing”, there also exists more aggressive

skills such as “Slayer”,“Hunter” and “Thieving”. In the “Slayer” skill, players are given tasks to

kill an arbitrary number of monsters, and thus engage in endless slaughter to regain a temporary,

superficial, and fleeting sense of accomplishment. Likewise, “Hunter” is comprised of several

different methods of poaching animals, such as box traps, deadfall traps, snares, noose wands,

and butterfly nets. However, the hunting of animals in game seems to serve no purpose besides

increasing the player’s level, in order to allow them to repeat the same thoughtless tasks with

different animals, or methods of trapping. Similarly, the “Thieving” skill encourages players to

steal from market stalls, chests, or pickpocket NPCs for trivial amounts of loot. Thus it is simply

a means of acquiring achievement for its own sake, allowing players to compare their levels to

assert some seemingly justified sense of superiority. However, this repetition of thoughtless

8

virtual murder is capable of “destroying mental autonomy, freedom of thought [and]

responsibility” (Marcuse, p. 201) in players.

So while these “skills” can be seen as unethical in their nature, there exists a bigger issue

when every action in the game is made by the simple click of the mouse and “everything is an

object that yields a measurable benefit when some action is performed upon it” (Kline et al, p.

276). What differentiates clicking to kill an animal from clicking to craft leather boots? As

represented by the game mechanics, the difference is virtually nonexistent. Thus we must

consider the effect when the mental significance of such actions are presented to be equal, when

the manipulation of fabric material is equivalent to the manipulation of other beings for one’s

own success. Furthermore, in engaging in such repetitive behavior, there is the consequent result

of the desensitization to violence, especially when it is presented as a form of thoughtless

distraction. If RuneScape acts as a form of entertainment, where “amusement always means

putting things out of mind, forgetting suffering, even when it is on display” (Adorno and

Horkheimer, p. 57), perhaps then in the context of technological aggression, in which aggression

is transferred from the player to the character in which they control, it is the interruption and

frustration of the “instinctual satisfaction of the human person” that leads to “repetition and

escalation” (Marcuse, p. 263). In this case, the digital suffering viewed in RuneScape is unable to

provide any such libidinal fulfilment besides a superficial sense of accomplishment, as it only

prompts repetition that can never truly satiate the primary impulse when the responsibility of the

player is shifted to that of the character in which aggression is mediated.

However, another concept I would like to present is that essentially all skills in

RuneScape are simply stepping stones to the end result of combat. “Mining” is used to obtain

9

ores, which are then turned into bars by “Smithing”, and subsequently made into various

weapons, such as arrowheads for “Fletching” arrows and armor for “Defense”. Just as logs

obtained from “Woodcutting” can be used to make fires with “Firemaking”, which can be used

with “Cooking” to cook food obtained from “Fishing”, which is then be used to replenish life

points to help in “Combat”. Despite the advertisement of an “open world” with infinite

possibilities, there seems to be no escape from the desire of domination and aggression, where

everything is a means to be the strongest killer.

The last issue considered in this paper is the representation of race in RuneScape. While

player characters themselves are customizable, from options such as gender, skin tone, and hair

color, there are still discriminatory and stereotypical representations of NPC characters, namely

the exotification of people of color. Just as Hollywood has been plagued with “lazy Mexicans,

shifty Arabs, savage Africans and exotic Asiatics” (Stam and Spence, p. 6), in RuneScape

caucasian NPCs are usually depicted as advanced members of civilization, while those of color

are reduced to primitive symbols of tribalism. This is such that the NPCs of “Man” and

“Woman” are represented as white individuals, literally setting the standard and “legitimizing

White hegemony” (Leonard, p. 6). The lack of racial and ethnic diversity in such a wide-reaching

game has real-world ramifications, as it prevents players from relating to the characters, and

instead continues the misrepresentation of minorities that effectively prolongs racial segregation

within society. Notably, in RuneScape, the only population of Arabs are bandits who live in the

desert and wield scimitars, most of which are named “Ali”, as some supposedly hilarious joke

made by the game developers. Furthermore, the only black NPCs are tribesmen who live in the

“Karamja” jungle and are equipped with spears and loincloths (Appendix Fig 2). This type of

10

representation of people of color is not uncommon in video games and media, but unfortunately

only serves to further disseminate harmful stereotypes. By allowing these stereotypes to exist

within RuneScape, it acts as “elicit approval for the status quo” (Leonard, p. 8), and “just as the

logic of sexism leads to rape, so the logic of racism leads to violence and exploitation” (Stam and

Spence, p. 4).

Additionally, “Aggressiveness” is a trait in RuneScape monsters that determines if a

monster will initiate combat. While most attackable NPCs are not aggressive, there is one

exception. Bandits, who are tacitly meant to represent to Arabs, will prompt the response “A

tough-looking criminal” (Jagex) when examined in-game and furthermore, will attack any player

wearing equipment or accessories belonging to either “Saradomin” or “Zamorak”, two of the

gods in the game. This wouldn’t be so significant if it wasn’t for the fact that out of 23,700

RuneScape NPCs, this is the only instance where an NPC will attack a player based on religious

grounds. Furthermore, when attacking the player, bandits might exclaim “Time to die,

Saradominist filth!" or "Prepare to suffer, Zamorakian scum!" (Jagex), reducing the player-NPC

interaction to the simple defeat of a Machiavellian enemy. In this case, we explicitly see racism

as “the generalized … assigning of values to real or imaginary differences … in order to justify

… aggression” (Stam and Spence, p. 6). Suddenly, this medieval fantasy game seems to be

perpetuating offensive stereotypes, especially towards religious extremism in the Middle East.

Furthermore, while a minute detail and seemingly insignificant, it is important to realize the

effect of repeated exposure only continues to perpetuate harmful and discriminatory cultural

ideologies. In a space that allows for players to explore, practice, and reinforce cultural and

11

social identities, RuneScape has failed to realise its potential to promote the cooperation and

mutual respect of all races.

This trend is unfortunately continued in RuneScape with the representation of gangs.

Namely, the “Menaphite” and “Bandit” gangs, who are rivals in the game, and once again both

represent Arabic stereotypes. It should also be noted that while other gangs exist in RuneScape,

such as the “Phoenix gang” and “Black Hand gang”, these gangs are predominantly white and

can actually be joined by the player as an important part of the questline. Whereas the

“Menaphite” and “Bandit” gang serve only as a collectivised enemy for the player to defeat, and

consequently limit players' choices to preconceived notions of racial bias. Just as FPS games

present monolithic, one-dimensional representations of Arabs where “the enemy is collectivized

and linguistically functionalized as 'various terrorist groups', 'militants' and 'insurgents'” (Sisler,

p. 7), RuneScape uses the terms “criminals” and “bandits”.

Video games are “devices of semiotic address that invite players to take up certain

subject positions and exercise certain options, widely or narrowly defined, within those

positions, positions that in turn replicate, reverberate with, or revise ideologies embedded in a

wide variety of cultural discourses” (Kline et al, p. 275). Therefore, as medieval fantasy game

that freely utilizes magic, monsters, gods, and other supernatural phenomena, RuneScape simply

has no excuse to perpetuate harmful and prejudicial cultural ideologies that “contribute to the

consolidation of white supremacist power” (Sisler, p. 6).

Therefore, while supposedly an escape from the real world, RuneScape acts as evidence

that even a virtual world isn't necessarily capable of detaching itself from the societal and

cultural prejudices that serve to exploit and perpetuate harmful ideologies that have so deeply

12

entrenched themselves in all aspects of culture. Ultimately, RuneScape is as much a product of

cultural hegemony as it is a device to assert and maintain the system, acting as a vital part of the

spectacle. Furthermore, as a modern capitalist artifact that has allowed for commodity fetishism

within the player community, and has assisted in the commodification of human relationships

along with the estrangement of labor and the alienation of “gold farmers”, RuneScape continues

to demonstrate how “social space is invaded by a continuous superimposition of geological

layers of commodities” (Debord, 42). However, in this depressing discovery, there is still hope

for video games. In the words of Marx, “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in

various ways. The point, however, is to change it” (Marx 1845, p.15). Thus in this moment of

enlightenment, the only next step is change.

Appendix

In the game, there are 27 skills the player can train. There are 4 skill types. Combat,

Gathering, Artisan, Support. The player can train in these skills and gain experience, commonly

abbreviated as XP or exp, which acts as a measure of progress in a certain skill. It is generally

obtained by performing tasks related to that skill. After gaining a certain amount of experience,

players will advance to the next level in that skill, which can result in new abilities, items, and

other achievements.

13

Fig 1. Game Interface

Fig 2. Representation of Color

Fig 3. Grand Exchange Interface

14

Works Cited

Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass

Deception." Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2002. 94-136. Print.

Kline, S., N. Dyer-Witheford, and G. de Peuter. Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology,

Culture, and Marketing. MQUP, 2003, https://books.google.com/books?id=5dPeI11a9u4C.

Marcuse, Herbert. Negations. Allen Lane Penguin Press, London, 1969.

Šisler, Vít. "Digital Arabs: Representation in video games." European Journal of Cultural Studies

11.2 (2008): 203-220.

Leonard, David. "Live in your world, play in ours: Race, video games, and consuming the

other." Studies in media & information literacy education 3.4 (2003): 1-9.

Stam, Robert, and Louise Spence. "Colonialism, racism and representation." Screen 24.2 (1983)

Jagex. A Friend Indeed. “Question 1 - Are you male or female? Male: 90%; Female: 10%”

(March 2008).

Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1. Trans. Ben Fowkes. New York:

Penguin, 1990.

Marx, Karl. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. New York: International

Publishers, 1964. Print.

Marx, Karl. “Theses on Feuerbach.” Marx/Engels Selected Works: Volume One, by Friedrich

Engels, 1969, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.pdf.

Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Bread and Circuses Publishing, 2012.

Lukács, György, 1885-1971. History And Class Consciousness; Studies in Marxist Dialectics.

Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 1971. Print.