I still have my sister and nephews over there - you can’t have a normal job a huge amount of families live off the money their expats send them.” “Things are getting steadily worse over time. “I would say that almost all the youth that have had the chance to leave the country have now done so - probably either through OSRS or other means. “I personally know a lot of people that left the country thanks to OSRS and still know people trying to do it,” he continues. “I can’t talk for my pals, but for me without OSRS, my family would have starved,” Martinez explains. They don’t struggle to find places to spend the money they earn, either - a recent study estimated that 54% of transactions in Venezuela last October were carried out in U.S. dollars or cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, which means that their hard work isn’t compromised by the hyperinflation of their own currency, the Venezuelan bolivar. Every Venezuelan player we spoke to for this story told us they sell their gold for either U.S. It’s nothing new, but it has become more pronounced as Venezuela’s infrastructure has been unable to function in recent years. “Depending on which state in Venezuela you are from, pretty much everyone knows about the game.”įarming, or “gold farming,” as it’s more commonly known, involves playing a video game with the specific aim of accumulating vast amounts of in-game currency (in this case, RuneScape gold ) to sell for profit outside of the game. “ RuneScape is a super mainstream way to earn money in this day and age,” Martinez writes. He continued to play the game and saved an additional $1,000, which he used to get his mother and girlfriend out of the country. He tells Polygon he earned $450 by gold farming in RuneScape, and used that money to flee Venezuela and move to Peru. RuneScape has been a lifeline for Martinez and his entire family. “Over time my salary became less than $4 and I just couldn’t do anything with it, so I decided to try a game my neighbor was telling me to play for money,” he writes to Polygon on Discord. Depending on which state in Venezuela you are from, pretty much everyone knows about the game.” “ RuneScape is a super mainstream way to earn money in this day and age. Martinez quit his job after the inflation rate of the bolivar meant he could no longer survive on the money he was earning.

One such player is ex-accountant Martinez, who requested that his last name not be published to protect his RuneScape account. RuneScape was originally released in 2001 by British developer Jagex, but it’s only in the last four years that a growing number of Veneuzelans have started depending on the game as their main source of income. While some craft bags out of worthless bolivars - Venezuelan currency - to sell at markets, others look to a virtual land of opportunity, spending hours in front of computer screens and mobile phones hunting green dragons in the online multiplayer role-playing game RuneScape. Those who remain in the country have been forced to find innovative ways to survive. In November 2019, the number of Venezuelan refugees and migrants reached 3 million. Ninety percent of Venezuelans are now living in poverty, and one of the most extreme and sustained periods of hyperinflation ever recorded means that people working minimum wage jobs are earning the equivalent of $5 a month.Īgainst this cataclysmic economic and societal backdrop, millions of people have fled the country in search of better lives, with many more desperately trying to find their own means of escape. What started as the gradual crumbling of the country’s economy in 2010 snowballed into a devastating avalanche of crime, corruption, and mass starvation, leaving millions of people in the country unable to feed themselves or access basic medical supplies. Venezuela used to be one of the richest countries in South America, but it has spent the last 10 years engulfed in a political and economic crisis.

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