This is not a minor case, and it reportedly involves a former developer tied to the long-running MMORPG.
You cannot kill what is not alive, but it turns out you may still be able to steal what is supposedly worthless. In a ruling handed down on January 14, a UK judge has effectively concluded that taking gold in Old School RuneScape, at least on the facts of this case, can be treated as a criminal matter.
At the center of the proceedings is a former employee of Jagex, the developer behind RuneScape. He is accused of breaking into 68 player accounts and making off with hundreds of billions of gold, which was then sold outside the game for Bitcoin. Jagex says the gold involved was worth more than $700,000.
Lord Justice Popplewell focused on the key issue: whether gold coins, described as a form of wealth within the videogame, qualify as “property” under Section 4 of the Theft Act 1968. The judgment goes into striking detail about what Old School RuneScape is – Popplewell even notes, correctly, that progression can be a time-consuming process – before reaching the conclusion that stealing RuneScape gold and selling it for Bitcoin constitutes theft.
The reasoning argues that, even if RuneScape gold has no inherent value in the real world, the concept of property should extend to anything that, in ordinary language, would be regarded as something that can be stolen, unless there are compelling reasons to carve it out. Because gold is bought and sold both in-game and outside it, the court reasoned that it is plainly capable of becoming the subject of dishonest dealing.
What makes the story even more notable is that this is not the first time someone tied to Jagex has been accused of dipping into the RuneScape cookie jar. In 2018, moderator Mod Jed was dismissed over the alleged theft of 45 billion gold – a staggering amount – but later received compensation for wrongful dismissal. In that earlier dispute, the focus was whether Jagex had conducted a sufficient investigation, rather than whether in-game gold could be stolen in the first place.
Source: PCGamer, National Archives
