Image by Box Brown

Below is an excerpt from a book I co-wrote, Six Figure Gamer: Gen Z, School Struggles and Discovering Yourself in a Virtual World . It is written in the voice of "Player X":

The world I game in has its own dark corners that I have to steer clear of to stay in the game and keep making Money.  Anonymity is essential to my success, which works out for me because too much attention terrifies me.   I am not a spotlight guy, and if I’m interacting with people I don’t know well, I’m much more comfortable doing it through the screen.  If I was a boxer, I would be known as a prize fighter. If was a pool player, I would be a hustler. If I was a card player, I would be a card shark. You get the idea. What do each of these have in common? Skilled people competing for the money, not for the love of the game. The game I play seventy hours a week is no longer fun. I play for the money, and there is a lot of money to be made. I make over $100,000 a year playing an online game called Old School Runescape, which I’ll be referring to as Osrs from here on out.  My personal story is one of a bored and uncertain middle school kid blooming into confidence and independence on an unexpected path.  The video games that seem to hold some kids back from finding themselves were the best and possibly the only vehicle for me to find my place.  I started out playing for fun, but it soon became a passion and then a personal commitment.  I’d never been able to invest myself in pursuits traditionally deemed to be good for kids.  I could get into school, art, or sports a little bit, but none of these captured my interest the way OSRS does.  My passion for gaming gave me the motivation to grow, working through mistakes and setbacks, gaining resilience and confidence as I came to see the bigger picture and developed skills to manage my emotions in the face of great pressure—sometimes magnified by the unfair intervention of hackers and scammers.  Through OSRS I learned how to stay in the game, grow in the game, in order to reach success. 

OSRS is an online fantasy-adventure game that dates back to the 2001 and belongs to a genre of game play known as a Massive Multi-Player Online Roleplaying Game (MMPORG). The first MMPORG was Meridian 59 in 1996, with the genre breaking through in 1997 with the release of Ultima Online. One MMPORG, Everquest, was so popular that players referred to it as “Evercrack” for its addictive nature. World of Warcraft eclipsed Everquest’s popularity by 2004. Players are able to log-in to an MMPORG at any time and the worlds are constantly in flux, with new quests and places to explore. Many of the games have been inspired by a classic but more low-tech game: Dungeons and Dragons, also known as D&D. D&D players were able to gain experience points, skills and weapons while completing tasks, game features that have translated well into the world of online gaming.  Where once the D&D player had to organize an ongoing real life meetup to keep a game going, in the age of online gaming players have access to millions of other players around the world.

In OSRS, players explore a fantasy world called Gielinor, in which they interact with other players and computer characters that are a part of the game’s design. Avatars chat, trade, explore, eat, train and develop survival skills, dress to impress, shop, date, fight game-generated creatures, and fight other players. OSRS design dates back to the days when many people were still accessing the internet using screeching, painfully slow dial-up modems with limited ability to carry data compared to what we are used to today. Graphics were grainy, many people did not have speakers for their PCs, character range of motion in gaming was limited by technology, and the concept of connecting online to play a game with someone not holding the player two joystick next to you in the room was in its infancy. All over the world, players could sign in at any computer and meet up virtually to explore Gielinor. Though gaming has evolved incredibly since 2001, resulting in the death of many games that were trending at that time, Runescape continues to have a population of millions of loyal users who are hooked on Gielinor. Runescape creators did not have the technical capabilities in 2001 to create the graphics and movements we have come to expect, but they made up for it with the incredible detail in designing the game, with layer upon layer of complex rules to learn and witty characters or experiences around every turn. Game creators continually update the game to keep it exciting, not just through technology but through creative content. No matter how many hours you have spent playing OSRS, there will always be a goal to pursue, whether it is something new and exciting, or old but difficult to achieve. Players never truly pass the final level, or beat the game, because the game is so complex.  It is constantly changing and developing in good part because of the active role of its community members. For many OSRS players, the community of Gielinor has great personal meaning and is an important part of their recreational and social life, substituting for offline social interactions. For members of Generation Z, technology has allowed us to create our own sense of community- free from geographic and technical boundaries. Community has become more of a choice, rather than a set of circumstances. For a smaller group of players like myself, OSRS is not only a community but also a significant source of income.

When you open an OSRS account, you enter Gielinor as a player with few resources and no life experience. In order to participate in the more exciting activities in Gielinor, your account needs to build the wealth to buy advantageous supplies and build the experience in various skills necessary to complete quests and defeat adversaries. Building up an account with wealth and skill takes time. For example, you will probably need to spend several hours mining copper in order to have the wealth necessary to buy some combat supplies and food necessary to slay some cattle. Then, you spend a few hours slaying cattle to build up your combat experience so that you can survive challenges against more powerful creatures. Players in Gielinor need to put in the time with menial tasks gathering resources to grow in status, and this creates an authentic user experience and a virtual economy for all goods used in Gielinor. Some gamers are not interested in spending many hours over the course of weeks to build up an account’s wealth or combat experience. These gamers want to skip to the higher level quests and player versus player combat without putting in time. Other gamers do not mind fishing, chopping wood, mining ores, or slaughtering cows and chickens, if compensated for their time. When these two groups connect, the market for exchanging real world currency for OSRS currency or a high-power OSRS account emerges.

My current six figure income is based entirely on this market for virtual gold, which I’ll call RS Gold going forward.  It began on the smallest of scales, when I was first offered thirty cents for some virtual trees I’d chopped down in Gielinor.  I was a young teen and had no other viable way of earning money.  Yes, real world trading is against the rules of OSRS, but it felt like a victimless crime.  I wasn’t scalping show tickets or selling drugs.  My enthusiasm for OSRS led me to quickly learn the ins and outs of the economy for its virtual gold at a time when I would not have had the emotional capacity to study a more real world traditional economy.  It was a great stepping stone for me, as I am now a student and serious investor in the cryptocurrency market.  I learned the basics of economics in a virtual world—how to earn currency, exchange it for a currency I am interested in using, protect it from thieves and scammers, and maximize the value of my time.

That first thirty cents earned doing menial virtual labor started my path to learn how to increase my hourly rate earning Runescape Gold (RS Gold) by focusing on increasingly lucrative tasks.  Mining RS Gold directly yielded a better rate, but as I developed fighting skills I learned that I could make money faster by fighting other players in OSRS’s Wilderness region, affectionately called The Wildy, which is basically the wild west of Gielinor.  In The Wildy earnings are unpredictable, as you can grab the items dropped by another player’s avatar upon death but you don’t necessarily know what you will find on any given visit.  Sometimes The Wildy is crowded with action and good marks, while at other times not much is going on.  If you want, you can hang out and grab the leavings when other players fight and the victor doesn’t grab all of the loot his opponent has dropped.  You can also initiate a fight, grabbing your opponent’s loot when you slay his avatar.  These fights can be straightforward welcome interactions between two or more players who ventured into The Wildy looking for action, or they can be virtual muggings of unsuspecting naive players tricked into entering The Wildy.  Earning potential in The Wildy is unpredictable since you never know who will come along or if they will be carrying anything of value, so I shifted my playtime to focusing on wagered matches in Gielinor’s Duel Arena.  The stakes and battle terms of a match are agreed upon in a very sportsmanly manner before matches at the Duel Arena, so while I do need to spend some time seeking out competitors willing to wager decent stakes, overall income opportunity is more stable than hanging out in The Wildy.  I still venture into The Wildy to mix things up, or hoping to find potential opponents who will agree to meet me at the Duel Arena for a wagered match, but my main earnings come from dueling with $200-$400 stakes.  I might grab some loot in The Wildy now and then, or take a risk and wager up to $4000 at the Duel Arena on the right match, but the bread and butter of my six figure staking comes from the $200-$400 duels.

It didn’t take long for me to grow my thirty cents earned chopping trees into an OSRS bank worth about $120, which for me at that time was a sum of money greater than I’d ever held.  I took the virtual resources I’d gathered to Gielinor’s central marketplace, called the General Exchange, and traded them for RS Gold.  I knew OSRS gold had value, but at the end of the day cashiers in the real world are going to give you a funny look if you try to make a purchase with RS Gold.  I would have to do some exchanging.  My in-game friends pointed me towards online exchange venues mostly located in Eastern Europe and Asia.  Like any currency market, the rate for trades varies by the vendor and by the day.  I selected a Chinese exchange from the list recommended by my OSRS friends and negotiated a trade using the website’s message box.  My avatar met the exchange’s avatar at an appointed area of Gielinor for the drop.  Real world trading, exchange of any OSRS items for real world currency, is forbidden by Jagex, the owners of the game, so we’d need to do the exchange in a manner that conceals the agreement made outside of Gielinor.  A straight “gift” of a large amount of RS Gold from one avatar to another would likely set off red flags and the unwanted attention of Jagex admins.  Instead we worked around this by creating a faux transaction that works about the same as a real-world money laundering operation, except in this case we’re breaking online gaming rules instead of federal and state laws.  I would buy a low-value item from the exchange’s avatar and pay for it with the RS Gold.  This would give the appearance to an outside observer that maybe an imprudent deal was struck, but that a trade of some sort (which is allowed by the terms of the game) was going on.  Then the exchange wired the agreed upon $120 to my PayPal account.  Somewhere in the world, the exchange would find a buyer for that OSRS Gold willing purchase it in real world currency.  Simple, or perhaps not so simple, as that.

From then on, I became a Staker, gaming more for money than for fun. When two OSRS players wager RS Gold on the outcome of a duel, we call it a stake.  Those of us whose purpose for playing OSRS is exclusively to make money in these duels call ourselves Stakers. I’m one of those very fortunate people who has found a way to make money while doing something most people do purely for recreation.  I’d place Stakers in the company of professional billiards and poker players in that respect.  We put in long hours to earn income.  I play seventy to eighty hours a week typically, and staking can be stressful.  But at the end of the day, I play video games all week instead of clocking in at the office, just as card sharks hang out in casinos or play online poker or pool sharks hang out in pool halls.

I’m Gen Z’s version of some famous players earning a living playing games of skill that have been around much longer than OSRS.  Hundreds of thousands have tuned in to the reality TV show The Hustlers to observe billiards players at a Queens, New York pool hall as they compete for cash and to advance in rank under high stakes, high stress conditions.  The pool hall is both the office and a hangout for these serious competitors, who like myself spend far too much time and energy on the game and are making far too much money off of it, for it to be considered a hobby anymore.  And yet in its essence, billiards is still very much a game. Series star William Finnegan describes the dual nature of professional gaming, “When I am playing pool, I want to have fun and win money.”  Some of Finnegan’s matches are for money, and others are for gaining or holding rank on the pool hall’s list.  If money were not involved, Finnegan would be at the pool hall for the thrill, the company, the glory, and the fun.  And yet because there is real money involved, Finnegan has to show up and play whether he’s feeling like a night out at the pool hall, or not. OSRS is the same for me.  I’d sign on and play just for fun if no money were involved, but since I’m earning I sign in to stake six days a week whether I’m really feeling like it or not.  I’m staking for the money, the thrill and the fun, though unlike Finnegan I am shy of the spotlight and have no interest in seeking fame or seeing my name at the top of a list ranking players.  OSRS has its share of legendary players, some known by their avatars and others who are known in real life for winning tournaments, but fame just does not appeal to me.  I also relate to Finnegan in that the social component of my time in Gielinor is significant. Many of my friends are people I’ve met through OSRS, and sometimes friends turn into competitors and back again depending upon the staking scenario.  Just as billiards players who will compete against each other in one game or tournament might on another occasion team up to hustle a mark or enroll in a team competition, when I stake in OSRS the folks in my social circles have shifting roles.  The guy I’m trash talking while we duel on Wednesday night might turn into an ally who I share a tooled up account with on Thursday night or who finances my stakes as an investor on Friday night.  

The lifestyle of a professional online poker player has some similarities to the Staker lifestyle as well.  Just as I started out with thirty cents and am now making six figures playing OSRS, there are online poker players whose lives have been changed by investing pocket change and a whole lot of skill into the game.  Chris Moneymaker is a notable example of a common man player who has become rich and famous playing poker online in his PJs.  When Planetpoker.com launched in 1998 as the first online poker game, Moneymaker was living an ordinary life.  In 2003 he was working two jobs (one as a comptroller and another part-time at a local restaurant), when he qualified to participate in an online tournament that would end with winning the 2003 World Series of Poker.  He bought in to a game with $40 and parlayed that into millions of dollars in winnings.  His story inspired millions of players to sign in for some online poker with hopes of meeting similar success, and he bears the honor of having this social phenomenon named The Moneymaker Effect.  The odds are the odds, though, and there can be very few Moneymakers. When newer players joined the online poker forums looking to earn some easy money, the experienced players cleaned up against those with little savvy.  High level OSRS Stakers rely on income from naive new players trying to join in our ranks in much the same way that the professional online poker players rely on relatively novice players anteing up at the virtual table fueled by stories of success.  

Two major points are missed for those who lose cash over the Moneymaker effect.  First, the games are structured so that for every winner there must be a loser.  This is not some community soccer league in which nobody really keeps score and everybody gets a trophy for participating.  Half of the players in every encounter will be losers.  This fact established, we have to consider who the winners will be.  Now if certain winners are making big money, it’s clear that a single winner has left quite a few losers on his path to big earnings.  The consistent winners seem at first glance to be ordinary folks who’ve found the secret to success in gaming and are following a path that is quite attainable for others.  Online gaming doesn’t require a certain pedigree.  We don’t apply for status, show up to mandatory trainings, or earn certificates.  High earning online gamers though, are far from ordinary in our skill sets.  A successful online poker player has a deep understanding of odds and a knack for reading his opponents’ behavior for clues into what cards are being held.  He may be an average guy in many ways, but he’s not an average card player.  The same holds true for OSRS Stakers.  My real-world lifestyle and accomplishments are pretty ordinary.  However, I have a talent in certain skill areas that helps me to dominate in OSRS duels.  I was never a great math student when it came to algebra, but I’ve learned to calculate odds as necessary to win duels in OSRS at a speed that gives me a huge advantage over other players.  In fact, many players download apps to do the calculations I process in my head at rates faster than enlisting apps.  As an athlete I’ve always been in the middle of the pack, but when it comes to the motor skills needed to win an OSRS duel, I have a unique speed and precision.  I’m so confident in the innate talent and heavy hours spent training to develop these skills that I have produced YouTube videos and played with a public audience on Twitch to share how I win with anyone interested in watching.  I’m not concerned that I’ll find myself competing with too many equals as a result.  Few have the innate ability, and of those who do, they’d also have to be willing to spend hundreds of hours a month, for years, training to reach my level.  Anyone can watch Rachel Rae cooking up a hearty meal, but she’s in no danger of being replaced my ex-girlfriend’s mom even though her honey garlic pork chops are unbelievable.  We’re all outliers, possessing a few skills that set us apart in ways that lead to profit in a very specific endeavor while not necessarily excelling in more traditional areas.  It’s tempting for individuals with typical talents and skill levels to zoom out so far that they fail to realize how unique, and difficult to replicate, our idiosyncratic skills are.  Realistically, though, the average gamer is about as likely to become a high-earning Staker as the average star of the local high school musical is to turn out to be the next Kelly Clarkson.  And yet the dreams of the average participant are what prop up the success of the few who inspire them.  As a high earning Staker, I need a steady stream of ambitious OSRS players looking to wager on some duels.  People wagering hundreds of dollars on a duel are doing so from a place of hope, which relies in part on the perception that they have decent odds of winning, when in fact the deck is stacked against them.

All too often, online gamers of all stripes share the same reputation of being in some way anti-social, though it is often unearned.  Okay, sometimes it is earned, but if you’re looking for examples of anti-social people in other career fields, you’d find just as a high a proportion in sales, politics, law, or dentistry.  Once you step outside of altruistic helping professions, you can always find examples of some activities that aren’t exactly contributing to the welfare of society. Yet, if you look at careers objectively, you can no more point out the meaningful benefit to society produced by stock brokers than you could for career gamers. We’re often depicted as freeloaders or charlatans, but really, like so many in this world, we are just earning a living.  We can spend our money and our time outside of gaming in pro-social or anti-social ways, which really depend on the individual rather than the career path.  Online gaming has no real barriers to entry, so on that level people who might not pass the background check for other forms of employment can take part.  Though gamers are aware that characters you might not meet in a more elite setting can be found online, and that the boundary between in-game loose ethics and real world authentic ethics can be blurry, it isn’t fair to paint us all with any single brush. Take the 2013 documentary Drawing Dead: The Highs and Lows of Online Poker, which describes its subjects as social degenerates who became professional poker players.  It went so far as to quote an expert who had the opinion that professional poker players are drop-outs who are fortunate to have online gambling because they have no decent alternative career prospects.   He’s clearly focusing in on examples that fit the hypothesis he wanted to prove.  We already know that Chris Moneymaker held down two respectable jobs before shifting into poker.  Another player to meet early success on Planetpoker.com was Gautam Rao, a University of Alberta graduate and materials specialist turned entrepreneur in the field of research.  Actress Mila Kunis, known for her roles on That 70s’ Show and as a voice actress on Family Guy, revealed in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel that at one point she was so into World of Warcraft that she had to remove it from her computer because of its addictive nature.  R.J. Mitt, famous for his role Walt Jr. on the series Breaking Bad, has also spent his share of time playing both World of Warcraft and OSRS.

Don’t be misled by my prior talk about winners and losers, though, as that status is always in flux.  Just as professional athletes have their off plays, Stakers have off moments.  Games are by nature never fully controlled or predictable, and while that is part of what makes them fun, it also means that all the training in the world doesn’t guarantee perfect performance.  Perfection isn’t necessary to be a winner though.  It’s all about the big picture and keeping track of whether my tactics, taken as a whole over months or years, leave me ahead financially.  There will be weeks when I win $5,000 on Monday only to lose $7,000 on Tuesday.  What sets me apart to become a six figure Staker, besides the time I’ve spent playing and some innate talent, is a focused ability to step back from the emotion of the game to make rational gambling decisions.  I make the most money when my opponent is swept up in emotion and wagers based upon the dopamine hits of small wins combined with the irrational decisions that come from rage.  Many players will keep wagering when it’s pretty clear that I’m going to win the next duel because they’ve become trapped on the treadmill of addictive gambling, at least for this gaming session.  These aren’t necessarily people who are gambling money they don’t have to the detriment of a healthy life, though I’m in no position to know who an opponent is in real life for the most part.  But just as your average slots player in Atlantic City might keep playing at a specific machine certain that the next big hit will happen if she walks away, many unsuccessful Stakers continue to duel because of an irrational sense that their time to win will come...next match.  I can throw a little gas on the fire of this kind of thinking by intentionally throwing a duel strategically in order to keep an opponent who should probably be walking away coming back for more.  Or I might let him or her take some hits on me during the duel, knowing how much my avatar can take before I’m actually in danger of losing, to create the impression that the match was close without actually allowing my opponent to win.  Some opponents are more easily manipulated through anger and trash talk, and they can be inspired to continue wagering in hopes of showing me my just desserts.  It takes a lot of willpower to know when to stay, and when to walk away, when emotions are high.  This willpower is what allowed me to earn $120,000 last year and has me on track to earn $150,000 this year as a Staker.