On July 15, Jagex reduced the output of one of Old School RuneScape’s most efficient AFK money makers. Deep Sea Trawling, the multiplayer boat-fishing minigame, got a 5-minute AFK-disconnect timer and a rule change that tracks shoal baiting per player instead of across the whole boat. Jagex’s patch notes gave the reason: the method had “significantly increased the amount of Marlin entering the game.”
Reaction was mixed. Efficiency players saw a nerf to a fun, social, low-effort grind. The trading data then showed what the change did to supply and price.
The supply problem
Raw marlin had fallen for months. In mid-April it traded around 6,700 GP. By mid-July, it had reached roughly 2,500 to 3,000 GP, losing more than half its value. The drop came from a farming method that was producing more marlin than its drop rate could support.
Every raw marlin sitting at a 2,800 GP floor was a raw marlin that belonged to someone who caught it the intended way too, whether at a solo fishing spot or in Deep Sea Trawling played as designed. When one exploit-adjacent method floods a market, it punishes the exploiters and devalues the same resource for every player who earned it legitimately.
The price response
When the July 15 changes went live, raw marlin jumped from roughly 3,200 GP to nearly 3,900 GP in a single 6-hour window. It has held in the 3,500 to 3,900 GP range since. The live Raw marlin quote is 3,400 to 3,570 GP, well above the pre-nerf floor.
A trader on r/GrandExchangeBets posted before the patch that marlin prices could rise around its release. The prediction matched the result because Jagex had already explained the supply problem. The patch notes said the method was causing “economic impact” and that Jagex was correcting it. The market repriced within hours.
Why the casual-player objection is incomplete
The main objection is that the change punishes ordinary players enjoying a social activity rather than bots or manipulators. That describes who felt the change, but it does not answer the supply problem. Deep Sea Trawling was producing more marlin than the rest of the fishing economy could absorb. Players did not need bad intent for the method to affect prices.
Once Jagex saw the impact, it could leave the method unchanged or reduce the supply. It chose the second option, and raw marlin recovered as the supply changed. In economic terms, the update corrected an oversupply rather than targeting individual players.
What to watch next
The open question is whether 3,500 to 3,900 GP is the new equilibrium or a stop along the way to something higher. The AFK timer and per-player shoal tracking reduce volume every session going forward, since the method is meaningfully less efficient to farm at scale than it was before July 15. If that holds, raw marlin’s supply keeps tightening even after the initial price jump, which argues the current range may still be undervalued rather than fully priced in.
Jagex’s patch notes can provide a useful trading signal. When the team says a method is affecting the economy, that is stronger evidence than a speculative Reddit thread. Read the stated change, then check whether the market response matches it.
Once the dust settles further, Raw marlin and related fishing-tier items will show up automatically in the market table if the numbers keep moving.
Related reading: Grand Exchange Bets: The Risk of Update Speculation covers how to read the buy-the-rumor cycle around any update, not just this one.