Player rights and virtual assets in online games

Top-ups, accounts, items, trading and shutdowns

Research cut-off: 22 July 2026
This is a research paper based on public law, court materials and industry sources. It is not legal advice for any particular project or dispute.

Abstract

An online game is not software delivered once. It is a continuing digital service connecting registration, real-name verification, payments, random draws, competition, social interaction, trading, sanctions and eventual shutdown. A player’s money, time and skill may produce an account, in-game currency, items, skins, levels or eligibility, each with a different degree of economic value. The operator controls the servers, identity system, rules, numerical balance and service life. The relationship is therefore neither simply “the player owns it and the platform holds it” nor “the platform owns it and the player has no right”. It is a compound set of interests built on a network-service contract.

Article 127 of the PRC Civil Code opens a route for protecting data and online virtual property, but does not create a particular real right or provide rules for publicity, transfer or third-party priority. Courts consequently approach disputes through contract, tort, unjust enrichment, e-commerce platform duties and unfair competition. An account may combine an identity credential, a contractual position and a data set. Closed-loop currency is closer to prepaid consideration and a claim for service. Tradeable items have stronger exclusion and market-exchange features. Non-transferable skins, levels and competitive qualifications remain more dependent on contract, the operating cycle and personal identity. A bundle-of-rights model explains why an account sale may work between buyer and seller without binding the operator.

Standard terms are necessary for game governance, but they are not a licence for unilateral discretion. Transfer bans, suspensions, balance changes, auto-renewal and shutdown clauses must be tested for notice, fairness, legitimate purpose, proportionality and procedural safeguards. A minor-top-up dispute cannot be decided by the real-name result or a refund percentage alone. The court must identify the actual user, capacity and ratification; the operator’s real-name, anti-addiction and anomaly-detection measures; and the guardian’s control of devices and payment tools. Published examples show full refunds, partial refunds and no refunds.

This paper compares 18 public case samples. The more stable tendencies are to protect lawfully acquired virtual interests, reject value generated through cheats, accept proportionate bans supported by evidence, require trading platforms to use the controls they possess, value loss by reference to a lawful and proximate market rather than historical top-ups, and treat a shutdown notice as insufficient without accounting for unused rights, data and complaints. Important unresolved issues include the effect of account-transfer restrictions, the validity of boosting contracts, guardian fault in minor refunds, and the status of 2009 and 2016 departmental instruments after the relevant 2019 game-regulation measure was repealed.

Keywords: online-game service contract; online virtual property; standard terms; minor top-ups; account trading; suspension; shutdown

1. Questions, scope and method

Players often reduce a dispute to “can I get my money back?” or “is the account mine?” Neither question is precise enough. Payment may buy closed-loop tokens, one random draw, a permanent skin, a time-limited subscription or a season qualification. Their transferability, duration and remedies differ. Even an account may have a registered person, actual user, payer and buyer who are not the same.

The operator is not merely a bailee. It maintains servers, changes rules, combats cheating, supports users and performs statutory duties concerning minors, identity and network security. Unlimited balance changes and permanent bans put user investment entirely under one-sided control; freezing every rule would make a live service impossible to govern. The practical questions are therefore: where did the interest come from, which powers does it include, is the restriction legitimate and what remedy follows from breach?

The paper uses doctrinal analysis and case comparison. The main legal materials are the Civil Code, the Consumer Rights Protection Law and its implementing Regulation, the Law on the Protection of Minors, the Regulation on the Online Protection of Minors, anti-addiction instruments and the E-Commerce Law. Eighteen public samples are coded by dispute, player conduct, platform measure, cause of action, result and reasoning. Platform terms are evidence of industry contracting, not legislation. A single event may support several claims: a mistaken ban may be wrongful termination and interference with a property interest; a seller who recovers an account may breach the sale contract and, on different facts, commit fraud; a trading platform that fails to freeze controlled funds raises service and e-commerce security issues.

The 2019 Interim Measures on the Administration of Online Games were expressly repealed [1]. The 2016 operating notice and the 2009 virtual-currency notice still appear in official materials and judicial reasoning, but their current normative status requires care. This paper treats them as departmental instruments and practical reference points, not as equivalent to statutes or administrative regulations.

2. Service contracts and standard terms

2.1 A continuing mixed service contract

Registration, acceptance of terms and initial use normally create a network-service contract. It is an unnamed mixed contract combining software access, server access, identity management, virtual-item delivery, payment settlement, community governance and customer support. Free registration does not negate a contract; advertising, data and later conversion may be part of the operating model. Top-ups, subscriptions, draws and item purchases are individual performances within that framework.

Entertainment users can generally fall within consumer protection. An occasional account transfer between users, a professional boosting business or a platform-versus-operator competition dispute may not. The first step is to identify the parties and commercial purpose.

Clicking “agree” can establish consent, but does not prove that every linked document became a term. Under Civil Code Articles 496–498 [2], the drafter must set rights and duties fairly and draw attention to material clauses that exclude or limit its liability, increase the other party’s responsibility or restrict a principal right. Unfair terms of this kind are invalid or ineffective according to the statutory test, and ambiguity is generally construed against the drafter. “Registration means that every future rule is accepted” cannot substitute for version evidence, prominent notice and a meaningful explanation of bans, deletion, auto-renewal, dispute clauses or shutdown accounting.

2.2 Rules as both contract and governance

Anti-cheat, anti-farming, anti-harassment and ranking rules protect the operator and other players as well as the drafter. Review should use five questions: was the rule incorporated before the conduct; is its purpose legitimate; do logs and review form an evidentiary chain; does the sanction match the conduct; and can the player obtain a reasoned review? In a Guangzhou Internet Court case [3], a user first received a 30-day matchmaking restriction and a warning, then repeatedly triggered detection and was permanently barred. The court upheld the sanction because the rules, evidence and escalation were proportionate. That reasoning does not mean a bare permanent-ban clause authorises any ban.

2.3 Consumer controls

Consumer law [4] limits terms that exclude or restrict consumer rights, excuse the business from responsibility or increase consumer liability. The implementing Regulation requires clear information and prominent notices before automatic extension and again before renewal. A subscription should disclose price, cycle, debit date, cancellation route and effect. A “no refund after sale” statement cannot exclude remedies for non-delivery, mistaken billing, fraud, an invalid minor transaction or an unaccounted shutdown. A displayed probability is not enough: the advertised version, server configuration, draw records and change log should agree. Dissatisfaction or an unlucky draw is not automatically fraud; fraud requires proof of intentional deception or concealment that induced payment.

3. The legal nature of virtual property

3.1 Article 127 as an entry point

Article 127 [5] says that where laws provide for the protection of data and online virtual property, those provisions apply. It recognises a protected interest without declaring every item to be ownership, or setting rules for publicity, good-faith acquisition, security, succession or enforcement. A real-rights model explains exclusion and third-party interference; a claim-rights model explains the operator’s continuing performance and contractual limits; a new-property model highlights technical control; a composite model permits different attributes in different relationships. The composite approach is presently the more cautious one.

3.2 Five objects should not be treated alike

Tencent’s terms [6], for example, describe accounts as credentials and virtual items as part of the game service while restricting transfer, rental, lending and boosting. Such terms show an industry arrangement; they do not erase the user’s paid-service, security or data interests, and substantial spending does not give the player ownership of software or servers.

3.3 Lawful source matters

The Supreme People’s Court’s 2025 unfair-competition examples [7] include a third-party game-currency trading platform. The court protected interests in lawfully acquired currency but rejected value produced through cheats and held that a platform providing convenient trading despite knowledge of illegal farming engaged in unfair competition, with damages of RMB 3.03 million. The lesson is source governance rather than an all-or-nothing view of trading. Operators cannot use a blanket ban to avoid lawful interests; trading platforms cannot rely on a player’s supposed power of disposition while ignoring abnormal output, bulk accounts, extreme prices and cheat indicators.

4. Top-ups, draws, subscriptions and changes

“Top-up” may buy currency, a determinate item, a random draw or a time-limited pass. A consumed RMB 1,000 in currency differs from unused currency at shutdown; removal of the core use of a “permanent” skin differs from ordinary balance work. Before payment, the operator should state amount, content, quantity, duration, scope and material restrictions.

The 2016 operating notice [8] called for disclosure of all possible random outcomes and genuine probabilities, publication of draw results and retention of records for at least 90 days, as well as confirmation and retention of top-up records for at least 180 days. Its regulatory foundation must be checked after repeal of the 2019 measure. Even where the notice is not applied as a current penalty rule, a false probability or mismatch between notice and server may be breach, infringement of information rights or fraud.

Auto-renewal [9] requires a real choice at each debit. The user should see the cycle and price, receive a pre-renewal reminder and be able to cancel through a route no harder than activation. Remedies should be classified: duplicate billing, non-delivery and server error usually call for restoration or refund; normally consumed service is not automatically refundable; minors’ invalid transactions follow capacity and restitution rules; shutdown requires accounting for unused currency and unexpired subscriptions; a serious player breach requires review of basis and proportionality, not automatic return of all historical spending.

Live operation needs room for balance, security and compliance changes. Relevant factors include necessity, notice, effect on a paid item’s core use, retroactivity, alternative or compensation and exit or appeal. Ordinary balance changes and season resets are foreseeable. Deleting a permanent core function, suddenly binding a tradeable item or rolling back a paid result may alter the principal performance. A term granting the operator power to change everything without liability is still subject to good faith, proportionality and consumer-fairness review.

5. Minor top-ups and guardianship

The Civil Code starts with capacity [10]. A child under eight lacks capacity; a minor aged eight or more may independently perform only acts suited to age and intelligence (or purely beneficial acts), with other acts requiring consent or ratification; a person over sixteen who mainly supports life with labour income is treated as fully capable. Capacity and platform liability are separate. A real-name record does not prove that an adult personally made every payment, while a small age-appropriate purchase is not automatically invalid merely because a platform had a flaw.

Courts ask who operated the account, whether the transaction was age-appropriate, whether it was ratified, whether the operator fulfilled its duties and whether the guardian controlled the device and payment credentials. Public examples show three outcomes [11][12][13]. A fifth-grade child bought four cards totaling RMB 5,949.87 in about 22 minutes; the Supreme People’s Court’s 2023 consumer case ordered a full refund. A 15-year-old who used a mother’s identity made nearly RMB 5,000 in small payments; because real-name controls existed and guardians failed to manage devices and passwords, only RMB 2,000 was returned. In another case, a 16-year-old who earned RMB 260,000 as a booster and whose guild earned about RMB 1.53 million was treated as relying mainly on labour income and received no refund. That outcome turns on evidence, not age alone.

Evidence should be shared according to control. Guardians may show age, school schedule, device use, payment source, chats and admissions. Operators control real-name, device, IP, time, game, payment and customer-service logs. The parties should separately prove actual operator, excessive value, ratification, platform safeguards and guardian fault. Refund verification should ask only for necessary identity, guardianship, payment and operation evidence, explain the calculation and recover items without exposing unrelated family privacy. Repeated claims and adult impersonation should be addressed through logs and payment verification.

6. Accounts, rental, boosting and platforms

Account sales have two layers [15][16]. Between buyer and seller, a clear object, price and delivery may be enforceable; a seller who recovers the account after delivery may owe the RMB 4,000 price and a reduced RMB 1,200 contractual penalty in one reported case. Against the operator, an unauthorised transfer may not transfer the contractual position. In a Guangzhou case a non-registered buyer who had spent more than RMB 1.12 million could not sue the operator for shutdown loss. This does not erase the buyer’s remedy against the seller. It separates internal sale, real-name publicity and the operator’s consent.

Transfer bans should be tested against real-name and security purposes, official change paths, whether they also lock up independently transferable items, and consistent enforcement. A trading platform is not automatically immune [17]. In one case, after a buyer paid RMB 7,272 and gave a verification code to a fake customer-service seller, the platform could have frozen funds and reset access but did not; the court allocated RMB 3,636 of loss to the platform. Platforms should verify source and control before listing, use escrow and abnormal-price detection during trading, and freeze unsettled money and preserve records after notice.

Organised account rental is different from a family member’s occasional borrowing [18][19]. Beijing and Guangzhou courts treated long-term, high-volume commercial rental that separates actual users from registered persons as unfair competition, with awards of RMB 1.5 million plus RMB 117,400 costs in one case and RMB 5 million plus RMB 100,000 in another. Scale, unified listings, login control, bypass technology and recurring commissions are material. Boosting has no single answer: a Beijing court invalidated a contract involving 31 frozen accounts because paid shortcuts and cheats harmed fair play; other courts allocated loss between player and booster, including a 50/50 allocation over RMB 4,170 and a 30% contributory-fault reduction on RMB 10,000 of loss. The analysis should ask whether there was cheating, anti-addiction circumvention, harm to other players and informed risk acceptance.

7. Bans, rollback, theft and proof

A permanent ban cuts off both access and use of virtual interests and should meet a higher evidentiary and procedural standard than a temporary chat restriction. The operator should preserve the rule version, detection indicators, raw logs, device and time, reports, review records, notice, appeal and response. “The system detected an anomaly” without a reviewable basis is weak against a mistaken-ban claim. The player must show account relationship, normal use, spending and loss, but the operator’s control of core logs matters once a concrete error is identified.

Emergency rollback to repair a duplication exploit may be justified if the time window is defined, snapshots preserved and innocent users restored or compensated. An unexplained, long and indiscriminate rollback shifts technical risk to players. An appeal process should identify the conduct, principal facts, rule version, period and materials, while protecting anti-cheat secrets through a reasoned summary or independent verification.

Account security is shared [23][24]. In the YU Binhua case, weak password choices and failure to use stronger protection led the user to bear the main responsibility for an RMB 1,180 stolen voucher; the platform’s inadequate default protection and failure to preserve the flow of the asset led to a 40% award, RMB 472. A 2025 Guangzhou example reached the opposite result where the operator warned of a changed security binding, traced the transaction and recovered items. The relevant moments are default security, anomaly warning, post-notice freezing and tracing, and record preservation.

8. Proving and valuing loss

Restoration should precede monetisation where data still exists and restoration will not harm third parties or the game ecosystem. A claimant should prove the account relationship, pre-loss inventory, event, causation and value. A payment record proves spending, not remaining value. Screenshots should preserve time, server and account identifiers. The operator controls inventory, trading, login and disposition logs and should explain them.

Valuation may use: lawful, public and active in-game market prices close to the event; direct purchase cost; proven lawful income for professional accounts; and a composite assessment considering spending, scarcity, duration, equipment, time, ban period, lifecycle and depreciation. In a case involving 44 virtual assets moved by a booster [25], the court used the lowest price in the in-game public auction house near the theft date and calculated RMB 31,324.81. Unauthorised listings, asking prices or isolated extreme prices are weaker. Historical top-up is not the same as account value because some spending became past enjoyment and items depreciate, but time and skill may matter where they created a scarce tradeable or professional result.

9. Shutdown and termination

Shutdown requires more than an announcement. The operator should stop new registration and payment, notify through the site, client, payment channel and—where proportionate—high-value dormant accounts, provide migration or export, account for unused currency and unexpired subscriptions, preserve and lawfully dispose of data, and keep a complaint channel.

The 2009 virtual-currency notice [26] proposed 60 days’ advance notice and return of purchased but unused currency in legal tender or an accepted alternative. A 2025 Xi’an case [27] involved more than RMB 30,000 of historical top-ups, a year of inactivity, incomplete public refund information and deletion after shutdown. The court used the operator’s app-store formula to award RMB 12,000 plus interest, while considering the player’s failure to monitor notices. The case shows that notice timing does not equal settlement. A transfer to another game or an equivalent gift package should be a real alternative, not a unilateral substitute where the product, server or duration materially differs.

The settlement should distinguish unused currency, unexpired passes, consumed items, “permanent” items, levels and time investment, and non-real-name transferred accounts. A term saying the operator may shut down at any time without notice, refund or data plan is unlikely to answer fairness review or claims for unperformed consideration. A publisher, channel and developer may allocate costs internally, but the public-facing contracting party should first address users and then seek recourse.

10. Case patterns

The 18 samples do not establish a national win rate. They show that courts acknowledge property-like interests without declaring universal ownership; use lawful source and good-faith use as thresholds; allocate responsibility by control; move minor disputes beyond a real-name yes/no test; value remaining interests rather than historical spending; and treat organised rental and illegal currency trading as possible systemic competition issues. These lines are compatible because the same virtual object has different legal consequences in different relationships.

11. Conclusions and unresolved issues

Four issues remain open: special rules for publicity, succession, security and enforcement of virtual property; the relationship between invalid restitution, platform fault and guardian responsibility; standardised official account-transfer routes; and the regulatory gap left by repeal of the 2019 measure while probability, records and shutdown settlement continue to rely on older departmental notices, consumer law and contract interpretation.

The paper’s conclusions are fivefold. First, use a context-specific bundle of rights: accounts, currency, items, levels and qualifications do not carry equal powers. Second, user terms should become reviewable governance charters, with versions, evidence, balance boundaries, renewal notices and shutdown accounting. Third, minor protection needs product evidence, not only a refund desk. Fourth, trading, rental and boosting should be assessed by lawful source, real-name and fairness effects, and platform control. Fifth, shutdown is contract settlement, not a notice. The operator should design migration, unused-right refunds, export and support at launch.

12. Limitations

The paper relies mainly on public cases and court summaries. Many local cases omit docket numbers or full judgments, so their evidence cannot be uniformly checked and no representative statistics are claimed. Platform terms change. The current status of the 2016 probability notice and 2009 virtual-currency notice needs formal administrative-directory confirmation. Data, personal-information, publishing, contract and IP questions require separate analysis for a specific project.

References

[1] Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Decision repealing the Interim Measures on the Administration of Online Games; Ministry of Culture, Notice on regulating online-game operations.
[2] PRC Civil Code, Articles 496–498, National Laws and Regulations Database.
[3] Guangzhou Internet Court, “Permanent login ban for using cheats”, Typical Online Virtual Property Disputes, 25 April 2025.
[4] Consumer Rights Protection Law, Article 26, and Implementing Regulation.
[5] PRC Civil Code, Article 127, National Laws and Regulations Database.
[6] Tencent, Game Licence and Service Agreement, accessed 22 July 2026.
[7] Supreme People’s Court Intellectual Property Tribunal, 2025 Typical Unfair-Competition Cases, Case 4.
[8] Ministry of Culture, Notice on regulating online-game operations, items 6, 7 and 12.
[9] Implementing Regulation of the Consumer Rights Protection Law, automatic renewal provisions.
[10] PRC Civil Code, Articles 18–20 and 145, National Laws and Regulations Database.
[11] Supreme People’s Court, Typical Online-Consumption Cases, Case 3, 15 March 2023.
[12] People’s Court Daily/China Court, Minor used parent’s identity for game top-ups, 16 October 2024.
[13] Guangzhou Internet Court, Lian v. A Company, Typical Online-Game Disputes, 26 April 2024.
[14] National Press and Publication Administration, Notice on preventing minors’ online-game addiction, 30 August 2021.
[15] Guanyun County People’s Court case as republished by Fuxin Intermediate Court, Seller recovered a game account, 6 November 2024.
[16] Guangzhou Internet Court, Zhang v. A Company, Typical Online-Game Disputes, 26 April 2024.
[17] Same source, account-trading service case.
[18] Haidian District People’s Court, Unfair competition by a game-account rental platform, 3 May 2023.
[19] Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court, Organised game-account rental as unfair competition, 2025.
[20] Beijing Daily, 31 boosted accounts banned; full commission refund, 18 April 2023.
[21] Xinhua case report via Jingchu, Account banned after boosting service, 15 March 2024.
[22] Yijiang District People’s Court, Responsibility and valuation in game boosting, September 2025.
[23] Supreme People’s Court, Ten Internet Typical Cases, Yu Binhua v. Guangzhou Huadu.
[24] Guangzhou Internet Court, Cui v. Computer Systems Company, Typical Online Virtual Property Disputes, 25 April 2025.
[25] Guangzhou Internet Court, Zhang v. Cao, same source.
[26] Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Commerce, Notice on strengthening online-game virtual-currency administration.
[27] Xincheng District People’s Court, Xi’an, Player rights after shutdown, 18 April 2025.