Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

Have you ever experienced playing an online game for 72 hours none stop, by killing the 5000th monster, you finally found the axe (very unique, cost 10000 gold to buy and you get 1 gold per hour of game play) you have been looking for, you feel like the luckest guy in the world. Log off the online game, sleep for 12+ hours, and the first thing you do after wake up is to log back into the game and try out your new weapon, and BAM, you realise the axe is gone due to a service failure. You contact the game service provider, and they tells you to get lost, it’s only a game. The rage makes you want to sue them, but you then tell yourself that’s just rediculous… Well, you don’t have to feel that way anymore, go ahead and sue them, and you will win. The above was a real story happened last December in Beijing, China and the court ruled the game service provider to restore the the lost property in the virtual game environment.

According to the defendant’s lawyer, many virtual items in the online games can be considered as personal propeties since it cost the player’s time, knowledge and hard work to gain and thurs they should be protected by the law. There is a legal committee in China which includes over 20 lawyers currently fighting for approval of the new law to protect the virtual property. Heck, maybe it’s time to start a Virtual Property Insurance company…