In 2023, Mr. A and guild members in NCSOFT's mobile game "Lineage M" defeated a boss monster and obtained the rare item "Eodin's Soul," worth about 1 billion won. But the joy of a legendary item soon turned into a dispute.
Mr. A left the guild without negotiating an item distribution agreement, and NCSOFT suspended the account for violating its operating policy, retrieved the item, and returned it to the guild.
Mr. A filed a lawsuit, saying "They took the item I obtained," but the Supreme Court did not accept it. The point is that even an expensive item obtained in a game is not automatically recognized as personal property like a real-world object.
According to legal sources on the 22nd, the Supreme Court's Third Division (presiding Justice Lee Suk-yeon) ruled against the plaintiff on Feb. 2 in the final appeal of a lawsuit by Mr. A seeking confirmation of the nullity of terms and conditions and other claims against NCSOFT.
◇ What matters more than "I got it first" is the game rules
From a user's perspective, if you defeat a monster and are the first to pick up the dropped item, it is easy to feel it is yours. But the court placed more weight on whether there was a distribution promise within the guild and whether someone violated it to gain unfair profit, rather than on who first obtained the item.
That is because the legal nature of game items differs from real-world objects. Rather than being independent property like a car or a mobile phone, they are data on a company's server and closer to service outputs that users access within set rules.
A game-specialist attorney who requested anonymity said, "For ownership to be recognized under the Civil Act, it must qualify as a thing, and there is debate from the outset over whether online game items fit that concept," and added, "Most game companies specify in their terms that they grant users a right to use, not ownership, so courts often view items as objects of a usage relationship rather than owned property."
◇ Even if it's in a game, insults and fraud are real crimes
Not every dispute in a game space is resolved solely by game rules. In 2014, the Incheon District Court recognized the crime of insult and imposed a fine of 2 million won in a case where a person hurled repeated insults in an online game chat room while referring to the other party's ID.
Also, in 2020 in "MapleStory," the court recognized fraud and sentenced a defendant to eight months in prison in a case where the person deceived both buyers and sellers at the same time by saying they would sell game money and items, then took the money.
It means that even if something happened in a game, if it infringed on another person's dignity or property, one bears responsibility no differently than in the real world.
◇ Item retrieval and account suspension are governed by terms
By contrast, disputes directly tied to game operations, such as item retrieval or account suspension, are judged by different standards. In the real world, laws and contracts are central, but in game cases, the terms of service, operating policies, and the in-game economic order become the key benchmarks.
Another game-specialist attorney said, "Law regulates primarily serious illegal acts, and the detailed order within games is filled in by the terms and operating policies," adding, "If the terms delegate details to the operating policy, the operating policy effectively functions as a contractual standard and becomes the primary criterion for resolving disputes."
In 2007, the Supreme Court found justified the restriction on account use imposed on users who engaged in so-called "auto-hunting" in Lineage. By contrast, in a 2020 case involving Nexon's game "Legend of Darkness," the court found excessive a 30-year use restriction imposed on a user who exploited a bug four times to obtain 9,907 high-value items, citing that the items were not transferred to another account and the impact on game balance was not significant.
Even in similar cheating controversies, the court did not mechanically look only at whether the terms were violated; it also considered the game structure, the impact on other users, and the proportionality of the sanction.
The way harm is remedied also differs from the real world. In reality, if property is taken, the matter is resolved by return or damages, but game items exist only on servers, so restoration occurs within the scope the operator can control.
In 2009, the Seoul High Court held in NHN's online game "R2" case that items remaining on the server that could be traced and retrieved could be subject to retrieval, but the operator was not automatically responsible for parts that had already passed to other users or disappeared and could not be restored.