A loaf of bread costs three dollars.

In Old School RuneScape terms, that's roughly 12 million RuneScape gold.

That single comparison sets the tone for one of the most eye-opening social experiments the OSRS community has seen: a week-long attempt to live like a real-life Venezuelan gold farmer, where every meal, utility bill, and moment of comfort depends entirely on selling in-game gold.

No sponsorships.

No safety net.

No money in the bank.

If you don't make GP, you don't eat.

The Rules of the Experiment

The premise was brutally simple:

Starting IRL balance: $0

Food, rent, and utilities: Must be “paid” using OSRS GP converted at real black-market gold prices

Income source: Traditional Venezuelan gold-farming methods—primarily Revenant Caves, later expanding to multi-account farming and Nex

No real-world trading (obviously)—this was a simulation meant to highlight scale, not encourage rule-breaking

Daily expenses were modeled after Venezuelan costs:

Around $4/day for rent

Roughly $8/day total including utilities and internet

Food bought at the cheapest possible options

Every GP drop suddenly mattered.

Day One: Clocking In at the Rev Caves

The grind began in the Revenant Caves, the most infamous gold-farming hotspot in OSRS. The first goal wasn't gear upgrades or PKs—it was rice.

One kilogram of rice cost $2.25.

At 26 cents per mill GP, that meant selling 8.5 million GP just to eat.

Early trips were rough. Small bags. Low-value drops. Constant pressure from PKers. Every death felt personal—not because of lost GP, but because it directly translated to missed meals.

Then the drops started coming:

Dragon platelegs

Ancient emblems

Totems

A massive 16 million GP emblem

That single drop wasn't hype—it was relief.

It meant dinner.

When GP Equals Survival

As the days went on, the mental shift became obvious. This wasn't “good GP per hour” anymore. It was calories per hour.

1 mil GP = ~26 real-life cents

A bad death = no salt, no protein, no food

A good hour = rice and bread

Entire sessions were spent calculating whether an emblem was worth more than a bag of groceries. Inventory management stopped being about efficiency and became about not dying, because dying meant hunger.

At one point, dinner consisted of:

Plain rice

Broccoli

Egg

Chili oil

No salt

Salt eventually had to be acquired for free from takeaway packets.

The Physical and Mental Toll

After 36 hours, the effects were real:

Constant hunger

Headaches

Brain fog

Mood swings

Obsessive GP tracking

The realization hit hard: even with “decent” OSRS luck, the margins were razor thin. One unlucky PK could undo an entire day's progress. Anti-PKing felt exciting—but often lost more money than it made.

At several points, selling GP became unavoidable just to function:

$5 here for food

$7 there for utilities

Always behind on rent

Even days with 30–40 million GP profit barely kept things afloat.

Escalation: Multiple Accounts and Nex

To simulate real-world gold-farming efficiency, the experiment escalated:

A second account added to farm revs simultaneously

One account scouting, one killing

Later, a shift to Nex, where a single drop could cover an entire week's expenses

On paper, Nex was the answer. In reality?

Six-hour sessions

Dozens of kills

Watching other players get drops that would've solved everything

Ending the day with barely enough to sell

It was soul-crushing.

The Final Outcome

By the end of the week:

Rent was still behind

Food was barely covered

One bad day meant starting over

The conclusion was unavoidable:

Living off OSRS gold—even efficiently—is brutal.

What looks like “easy GP” from the outside becomes an exhausting cycle of risk, stress, and constant pressure when it's your only income. The experiment ended early—not out of boredom, but necessity.

The final realization?

“I couldn't live like a Venezuelan gold farmer. It was too expensive. I don't know how they do it.”

A New Perspective on OSRS Gold Farming

This wasn't just a RuneScape challenge—it was a reality check.

The next time you:

PK a rev farmer

Complain about bad RNG

Call gold farming “easy money”

Remember that for some players, OSRS isn't just a game. It's food, rent, and survival—measured in millions of OSRS gold and fractions of a dollar.

The experiment ended with weight lost, money gone, and respect gained.

And yes—despite everything—the grind continued.