Source: The BeheCast. Verified against multiple sources; datamines and reports are labelled as such, not stated as fact.
The Cut
Jagex pulled 298 purchasable items out of RuneScape 3 and lost 40% of the game's revenue the next day.
Pull the microtransactions out of a live MMO and you find out what they were worth by the next morning. Jagex has now said its number out loud: 40% less revenue on RuneScape, 20% less profit across the company, one day after the switch.
CEO Jon Bellamy, who plays as Mod North and took the job in March 2025, gave the accounting on the season finale of The BeheCast, episode 20, published August 7, 2026. Jagex pulled 298 distinct purchasable items out of RuneScape 3. None of them have been buyable since January 2026, and anything still sitting in the game comes out at the end of 2026.
we pulled out, I think, 298 distinct microtransaction items that were available to buy, like almost 300 thingsJon Bellamy, Jagex CEO, on The BeheCast
What survived is a short list: bonds, bonus XP stars, and RuneCoins cosmetics. Bellamy says the stuff he deleted had "crept into every part of the game over like a 15-year period," which is the honest way to describe how a shop stops being a shop and becomes the game.
This was not one executive acting alone. Bellamy took it to a board that includes CVC and Haveli representatives and spent roughly three hours on "evidence and proof points and data." What he got back afterwards is the part most executives never get.
you didn't make this decision. We all made this decision, and we're in this whether this works or it doesn'tA Jagex board member, as recounted by Bellamy
One more change shipped next to the removal, and it is the one Riot should be staring at. Around January or February 2026, Jagex added a toggle that hides other players' purchased cosmetics. Flip it on and you see what somebody is actually wearing.
On SteamRuneScapeTrailer, screenshots, and the full store pageThe Receipts
Four straight years of membership decline, and a first half of 2026 that finally did not decline.
The reason any of this is worth a Riot fan's time is the second number, the one that took months to show up. Bellamy says RuneScape membership had been sliding for four straight years in an almost straight line.
RuneScape's been on like a slow downward trajectory membership for like four straight years, pretty much linear, down into the rightJon Bellamy, Jagex CEO
Then it stopped. He is careful about what he claims from that, and the hedge is the most credible thing he says all episode.
For the first time in almost half a decade, the first half of this year hasn't declined. It's flat. In fact, June was up a little bit, and July's up even more.Jon Bellamy, Jagex CEO
Removing microtransactions doesn't make your game grow, but I think it gives you a chance to get people back on side in a way that then allows your game to grow.Jon Bellamy, Jagex CEO
March 2025
Bellamy takes the job
Announced as Jagex CEO, known in game as Mod North.
January 2026
The shop goes dark
298 items stop being buyable in RuneScape 3.
January 2026
The visibility toggle
Around January or February, a setting that hides other players' purchased cosmetics.
August 7, 2026
The number goes public
Bellamy gives the first detailed accounting on The BeheCast, episode 20.
End of 2026
The leftovers get deleted
Anything still sitting in the game is removed outright.
- Bellamy appeared as the season one finale guest, and says outright: "I hope other people take that risk too if we find some positive success with this"
- He is not claiming causation for the flat line. He is claiming the trade bought Jagex a chance
- Nothing here is a Riot statement. Riot has said nothing about how the Runeterra MMO will make money
What This Means for the Riot MMO
Riot has never stated a business model, so the only baseline is a catalog that is free to play and sells looks.
Riot has never put a business model on the record for the Runeterra MMO. No price, no subscription, no shop plan, nothing. The only honest baseline is the track record, and the track record is a catalog that is entirely free to play and monetized through cosmetics. We went long on where that leads in our pay-to-win deep dive.
Which is why Bellamy's toggle is the interesting artifact, not the 298. He built a switch that lets you see through the shop. The reason a switch like that needs to exist is simple. A player's silhouette is the only progression report other people can read.
A player's silhouette is the only progression report other people can read.
In a persistent world you spend most of your time reading strangers. That armor means a raid you have not cleared. That weapon means a fight you have not won yet. Sell the look and the sentence stops being true, and the world quietly turns into a lobby where everyone is dressed for a photo. Bellamy also just priced the U-turn for anyone who monetizes first and fixes it later: 40% of a game's revenue, overnight.
| RuneScape 3, after the cut | Riot's Runeterra MMO (unannounced) | |
|---|---|---|
| The game | RuneScape 3, live | Unannounced, set in Runeterra, and that is the whole confirmed list |
| On the shop shelf | Bonds, bonus XP stars, and RuneCoins cosmetics | Not revealed |
| Items withdrawn | 298, unbuyable since January 2026 | Not revealed |
| Hide other players' purchases | Yes, a toggle | Not revealed |
| Business model on record | Stated by the CEO, on a podcast, with the cost attached | Not revealed |
| Shop history | Fifteen years of accumulation, now unwound | Not revealed |
Runeterra is not neutral ground for this argument. It is a setting where what a person is wearing is already a plot device, and Riot has been animating that idea for years.
Watch Tales of Runeterra: Demacia and the whole short runs on read-at-a-glance. Two kids in the Great City turn the adults around them into heroes, and the armor does the introductions.
The canon underneath it is harsher than the short lets on. 
Sylas was born a mage to a poor Demacian family and his own parents talked him into turning himself in to the mageseekers, who then used him to point out other mages. 
Lux was born into the other half of that arrangement and spends her biography hiding what she is.
The light inside is what makes me different, and I'm always careful where I shine it.Lux, League of Legends biography
Her brother 
Garen wears the inverse: Crownguard plate, a family whose aunt Tianna was Sword-Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard, a silhouette that announces his entire lineage before he opens his mouth. Read his biography next to Sylas's and the point makes itself. In Demacia, appearance is evidence.
Now put a cash shop on it. If a Runeterra MMO sells the plate, the plate stops being evidence of anything except a transaction, and the setting loses the one thing Bellamy says a persistent world cannot afford to lose. That is the tension a Riot MMO inherits on day one, sitting next to League's skin catalog.
- There is now a public price on de-monetizing a live MMO: 40% of game revenue and 20% of company profit, gone the next day
- The cosmetic-visibility toggle is a concrete design answer Riot will need if MMO gear is both earned and sold
- Bellamy treats a stopped four-year decline as the first evidence the trade works, and says he wants other studios to try it
- With no stated business model, the Riot MMO inherits League's cosmetics-first default unless Riot says otherwise
None of this tells you anything about the game itself. Which regions it opens in, how much of the map is playable, what era it sits in, what it costs, what you play it on: all unrevealed. Riot has confirmed the setting and nothing else. The map and the crests below are the fiction Riot is drawing on, not a starting zone.
RuneScape keeps doing the thing Riot has not committed to yet. It just adopted the fan tool everyone already used while Riot spent July telling trackers to stand down, and it raised the housing bar Runeterra was built for.
The uncomfortable comparison is the other direction. When a studio starts building against a number instead of a world, the number wins by default, because nobody has to argue for it. Bellamy is the rare case of somebody arguing back and publishing the receipt. Aion 2 drew its own version of the line with a $15 sub and zero pay-to-win, and Riot will get measured against both.
Your Take
Should Riot's MMO sell cosmetics that change how your character looks to everyone else?
What's Next
Two dated beats from Bellamy's own account, and where we have covered this fight before.
Reported from The BeheCast and corroborating coverage. The MMO read is ours and clearly speculative. Analysis by RuneGrove.
