Wired’s Game | Life blog is reporting that a Chinese MMO player (surname Zhang) sued Shandra Interactive after they failed to return his in-game items… and won. The game company has been ordered to pay Zhang the equivalent of $680 for items originally taken as part of a police investigation into the sale of stolen virtual goods in World of Legend, a Chinese MMO. Shandra failed to return the items after the investigation ended and now must pay for the mistake. Zhang also plans to take Shandra to court over the $20,000 he claims to have spent on the game over the last five years.

So, there you have it. Virtual items have real world value in China. It’ll be interesting to see how this scenario plays out when it inevitably ends up in courts in other parts of the world. It’s typical to sign away all your rights by agreeing to a draconian EULA before playing any MMO, but with more and more MMOs dumping monthly subscription models in favor of free to play schemes that allow players to spend real world currency on in-game items, the question of who owns these virtual items becomes increasingly relevant. It’s one thing to pay $5.99 to flip a variable on a server and wield an Ethereal Dagger of Demon Flaying; it’s another thing entirely to not even really own it.