RuneScape is not shutting down. Even though I despise this game, I know that the game will not simply give up. For starters why did you have the impression RuneScape was shutting down? Was it because they ruined the economy by adding and taking off little bits of the game? What I believe is that they are not shutting down, just losing business.
Why? Because of Gold Sellers, Power levelers and other hacking and unfair techniques to gain advantage in the game. Jagex thought this was not good for the economy of the game so they decided to simply block off the sellers. This caused problems for merchants and other sales people. They cannot make a profit. Skillers are almost just as useless as them, only making profit of what anyone can make.
RuneScape wouldn't shut down because of the employed people that work for Jagex. Over 400 people would no doubt work for Jagex. Could the Moderators simple tell them that they are shutting down? This would cause at least 300 people in worrying pain that they would have to search for another job that they would have no skill in. This wouldn't give Jagex a very good impression even AFTER they shut down.
Even though they don't look that fancy, Jagex has actually made an impressive 62 Million USD. Shutting down will not be the worst scenario of Jagex's history, but what if they could make the game better? They could possibly raise that limit even further.
I don't know why people think that RuneScape is shutting down; it is the most world wide played Java based game in the whole entire world. Even though it seems like nothing to games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars (which has millions of players), RuneScape has its own and unique gaming system.
So, don't go reading those crazy posts about RuneScape shutting down. The chances of such an event happening is slim. The only reason why RuneScape may shut down is because they are going bankrupt or a major loss in business if no one wanted to play RuneScape anymore.
So why doesn't Jagex just bring back the old game like we all probably used to love? Well, I personally think that they just think it is unfair to the people that pay to play the game. Because, Free to Players still have a very large vast amount of area and concept to play in. Even though free to players won't pay to become a member, they will pay for vast amounts of gold. With that amount of gold they gain an unfair advantage over members because they can easily make more than members.
So overall, RuneScape isn't going to shut down… for now any way. They are a very large company; in fact, it is the richest Internet company that is younger than 30 years old.
