UK High Court judgment on whether the Theft Act applies to Runescape gold pieces(caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk)
caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk
UK High Court judgment on whether the Theft Act applies to Runescape gold pieces
https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/crim/2026/4
11 comments
Given one’s ability to trade in-game assets for real world ones, it’s not very different from any other virtual assets and so I agree with the appeal decision to treat it as something that can be stolen.
If GP is an asset with real value then acquiring it is taxable as income, no different from if you acquire bitcoin via mining. I really don't think video game players want to record every GP they acquire and file taxes for it at the end of the year. So a legal fiction of it being non-valuable is still probably preferable by them even if it excludes them from some legal recourse in the case of theft.
Tax would only be due on any net gain that's made, surely?
Well yeah, but that just means you also have to record both the GP you spend and the GP you receive and the fair market value at the time of spending or receiving it.
Unless you are thinking that you only would need to file taxes if you were to sell the GP for some kind of normal currency. That isn't how income tax works, you can't avoid or delay being taxed by receiving your salary as gold or bitcoin or some non-currency asset, all "clearly realized accessions to wealth" count as taxable income. And so just as you have to pay income tax on the fair market value of bitcoin or gold whenever you mine or otherwise earn it, you would also have to do that with GP whenever it was earned.
Unless you are thinking that you only would need to file taxes if you were to sell the GP for some kind of normal currency. That isn't how income tax works, you can't avoid or delay being taxed by receiving your salary as gold or bitcoin or some non-currency asset, all "clearly realized accessions to wealth" count as taxable income. And so just as you have to pay income tax on the fair market value of bitcoin or gold whenever you mine or otherwise earn it, you would also have to do that with GP whenever it was earned.
My employer isn't paying me in MMO-Bux, I am converting MMO-Bux into govt. backed currency at a date and time of my own choosing. There's no need to record anything other than the financial transaction.
I sold a few billions of runescape gold I acquired through staking during the pandemic. It was worth several thousands of dollars at the time. I declared the income when I filed taxes in Canada, as one would if they're a law abiding citizen.
If I hadn't sold it I wouldn't have made any income and it would make no sense to disclose anything about what's happening in a video game.
If I hadn't sold it I wouldn't have made any income and it would make no sense to disclose anything about what's happening in a video game.
It's a shame that things that seem so simple take so much effort to shake out in a legal setting.
Obviously if they were able to trade it for money the thing was valuable, and that trade deprived the original players of whatever value, despite that value being artificial (Jagex could just just flip bits to give players gold), meeting the definition of theft.
Also interesting that Jagex tried to have it ruled as their own property as well. They have deliberate rules in the terms to the effect that they will never compensate you for scammed gold. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too; we create arbitrary restrictions on whether we will make players whole based on our convenience demonstrating their desire to treat it as without value where their own culpability is concerned, but also want it legally to be treated as their own property as far as culpability is concerned. Something about that feels off.
Obviously if they were able to trade it for money the thing was valuable, and that trade deprived the original players of whatever value, despite that value being artificial (Jagex could just just flip bits to give players gold), meeting the definition of theft.
Also interesting that Jagex tried to have it ruled as their own property as well. They have deliberate rules in the terms to the effect that they will never compensate you for scammed gold. They wanted to have their cake and eat it too; we create arbitrary restrictions on whether we will make players whole based on our convenience demonstrating their desire to treat it as without value where their own culpability is concerned, but also want it legally to be treated as their own property as far as culpability is concerned. Something about that feels off.
The legal setting is designed to take this much effort to shake things out. Jagex is a corporate person and thus has no inherent moral compulsion or necessity to avoid hypocrisy in their desires. I agree with your view that it’s sketchy in human morality, but they are inhuman, so our human moral judgement of them is inapplicable. Only their incorporating principles and the law bind their actions to be prosocial at all. Thankfully the law panned out to be prosocial here, and with such intense rigor that the judgement will likely be referred to in other countries as well going forward.
Would shutting down the game server for good be considered property damage then?
I think this was the basis for the "Stop Killing Games" petition/initiative that was brought forward in Europe in 2025. They argued they had to open games up to private/3rd party hosting for this exact reason. IMO, if you lose the ability to play the game, then that would be damaging the "property" that is your game copy as well. It's like if you booted up your favorite offline single player game at home to find that they deleted half the maps/content.
Is it theft or property damage when a company makes bad business decisions which deprives its shareholders of real-world value by devaluing the stock?