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While the US courts have gran yet to decide the boundaries of gamer rights and settle concepts of virtual world property, some other countries have decided to weigh in on the issue.
In a 2003 case against a gaming company, a Chinese court found in favor of the gamer plaintiff, demanding that the defendant return the equivalent of the plaintiff's stolen virtual property when a hacker exploited security vulnerability in the software.
Last year, South Korea proposed a bill that would prohibit the commercial sale of in-world currency to cut down on the the horrible conditions that some gold farmers are forced to work in by employers.
Ridiculous as it may seem to some, online personalities are exchanging real money to stay in the virtual world a little longer. As Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Federal Circuit Court of Appeals recently remarked in a Second Life appearance, "With real money being invested in virtual worlds, there need [sic] to be law-like rules to resolve disputes, protect property rights, enforce contracts, and protect intellectual property and so forth." It is only a matter of time before the implications of real money transactions command attention from more than just the game companies that run virtual worlds.
The official website has video footage documenting how players have created their own virtual objects using a graphic design program similar to AutoCAD. This in stark contrast from classic massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) where items that could be invented within the system were identical to others of its kind, and had a predefined, unwavering formula of ingredients.