The price of this game is already crazy.
With all this going on I thought I'd chime in with some recent conversations I've had with my friends regarding OSRS and its CURRENT monetization.
I have a friend who recently got back into the game, they played a lot of free to play and were considering buying membership, but when I told them how much it was they couldn't believe it. All my other friends too, who are somewhat familiar with OSRS but don't play themselves, were shocked that I or anyone would pay $14.99 Canadian per month for this game.
Sure, after you explain that the content is virtually endless AND it receives weekly updates, it makes sense and they reluctantly saw the value for certain people. But the kneejerk reaction of the average person upon looking at this game and being told it costs $14.99 a month is that of pure shock and confusion. Most prospective players wont have someone to try and convince them of the hidden value of this game, its an incredibly hard sell, even at its current price point. Much less with even cosmetic or tertiary monetization, which if you read Mod Pips' letter, leaves the door open for.
And as for leaving the door open for F2P ads? Simply insane. I think we all need reminding that F2P ALREADY has ads. They are in the form of the insane amount of members objects and features littered around F2P that cannot be interacted with, simply prompting "you must be a member to use this"
My friend was seriously frustrated at the sheer volume of things constantly reminding them that they weren't playing the full game. Which is obviously by design, but to imagine putting even more junk in there would seriously destroy any hope of most people wanting to jump onboard.
TL;DR
This game is already expensive as fuck, and the average person or prospective player is shocked to learn the price of it. F2P already has ads in the form of unusable members objects. Any added monetization will kill the game, which the CEO letter leaves the door open to.