This case begins with a criminal judgment from a Shanghai court, concerning the behavior of employees in the traditional gaming industry who used their work privileges to modify backend data and resell in-game currency for profit. Although in-game currency and cryptocurrency are not in the same category, given the current lack of clear legislative guidance and established standards for judging Web3, virtual assets, and cryptocurrency crimes within the judicial system, investigators often use virtual property cases in the gaming industry as an analogy to infer the legal attributes of Web3 criminal cases, the property nature of virtual assets, and the path to characterizing such acts. Therefore, when handling criminal cases involving crypto assets, the value of lawyers studying traditional gaming industry criminal cases lies in better understanding the thought processes and judgment methods of investigators in handling virtual asset cases. This allows for a more targeted approach to litigation strategies and improves the effectiveness of communication. Case Introduction: Huanle Interactive Entertainment Co., Ltd. is mainly engaged in the development, distribution, and operation of electronic games. The company collaborates with multiple game platforms to operate its developed electronic game, "Arcade Three Kingdoms." Players of "Arcade Three Kingdoms" purchase in-game currency, "Yuanbao," from Huanle Interactive Entertainment by recharging their game accounts. This currency is used to upgrade game equipment and character attributes. Shen, who works at Huanle Interactive Entertainment as a game operations planner, abused his game operations management authority without authorization to modify backend data, adding "Yuanbao" to the individual game accounts of multiple players and collecting a total of over 150,000 yuan. Trial Process: The Shanghai Pudong New Area People's Procuratorate accused Shen of the crime of damaging a computer information system, with particularly serious consequences, and should be sentenced to more than five years in prison. The court of first instance did not accept the accusation, but instead found him guilty of illegally obtaining data from a computer information system and sentenced him to three years in prison. The Shanghai Municipal People's Procuratorate Branch 1 appealed, arguing that Shen was guilty of embezzlement. Ultimately, the Shanghai First Intermediate People's Court sentenced Shen to three years in prison for embezzlement [(2020)沪01刑终519号]. Lawyer Shao's Analysis: The facts of this case are not complicated, but because the case involves "game currency," a virtual currency, it led to a dispute over the application of the crime. The trial of criminal cases mainly revolves around two issues: one is the nature of the crime, that is, what crime the perpetrator has committed, and the other is the sentencing, that is, determining the amount involved in the case and sentencing the perpetrator accordingly based on the amount involved and other circumstances. In this case, the issue to be resolved is whether virtual currency belongs to property under criminal law, and how to determine the value/amount involved of virtual currency. What crime did the employee's actions constitute? The focus of the dispute in the first and second instance judgments of this case is whether the employee's actions constitute embezzlement or the crime of illegally obtaining data from a computer information system. Further, the core difference between the two crimes actually centers on the same issue: whether the virtual currency (game currency) involved can be considered "property" in the sense of criminal law. Only when it is confirmed that game currency has the attributes of property can the employee's act of using his authority to add game currency and resell it fall within the evaluation framework of embezzlement. The court of first instance held that the game currency in this case existed in the virtual space of the game "Arcade Three Kingdoms," and was merely an electromagnetic record within the computer game program; therefore, its essence belonged to computer information system data. However, the court of second instance rejected this view, arguing that game currency constituted property in property crimes, for the following reasons: In conjunction with the provisions of the Civil Code, the court affirmed the concept of game currency as online virtual property, believing that property in criminal law is not limited to tangible things, but also includes intangible things and property interests. The court further argued that game currency possesses economic and practical value; operators need to invest human and material resources in developing and operating the game, and players need to pay a price to purchase it, which is no different from ordinary commodities. Players obtain game services provided by operators by purchasing game currency, satisfying their personal spiritual needs. Although operators can continuously replicate game currency by modifying the code, each game currency exists independently. The perpetrator can exclude others from possession and establish a new possession relationship, thus fulfilling the necessary conditions for establishing a property crime. If the game currency controlled by the player is considered property, while simultaneously denying the property attribute of the game currency controlled by the operator, it would lead to different evaluations of the legal attributes of the same item, undermining the uniformity of the concept of property. However, in a case heard by the Tianhe District Court of Guangzhou in 2023 [(2023)粤0106刑初748号], the court presented a completely different view from the aforementioned Shanghai court: while affirming the property attribute of game currency as virtual property, it further emphasized that having property attributes does not equate to meeting the definition of "public or private property" in criminal law. **Basic Facts:** Chen, exploiting a loophole in a company's program, illegally obtained virtual currency "Yuanbao" from a game for free and then offered paid top-up services to other players. In this case, whether the game currency could be considered property under criminal law determined whether Chen's actions constituted theft or the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data. **The Court's Opinion:** Although game currency has use and exchange value within the game space, its value is determined by the issuing entity, not by market transactions, and game currency cannot serve as a conventional medium of exchange in market economic activities. Furthermore, the court held that, based on the data attributes of game currency, it is inherently indestructible and cannot be lost, and can be mass-produced and regenerated. After the perpetrator steals the game currency from the game operator, it remains on the game operator's server. The game operator has not lost possession of the game currency and can fully recover its losses through account bans, data rollbacks, and other self-help measures. Therefore, the aforementioned behavior differs from ordinary theft. Thus, Chen's actions were characterized as the crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data.
Summary
As can be seen from the two judgments above, different regions and different courts have completely opposite judicial understandings on the question of whether virtual currency in the category of game currency necessarily belongs to public or private property in the sense of criminal law.
The logic of the Shanghai court emphasizes the practical attributes of "players paying to purchase—virtual currency has consideration—can be exclusively controlled—has economic value," and thus includes it in the criminal property system; while the Guangzhou case emphasizes the technical characteristics of "can be infinitely copied—does not depend on market supply and demand for pricing—operators can self-help," and believes that although it is virtual property, it is not necessarily equivalent to property in the sense of criminal law.
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