We’ve all joked about who will keep our sacred Steam library or delete our history when we pass away. What seemed like a simple internet joke has now become a serious legal matter. Various courts in China have officially ruled that video game accounts, virtual items, and other digital assets can be claimed as legal inheritance by the direct relatives of a deceased player, recognizing that the time and money invested has real economic value and cannot simply disappear.

To set this precedent, authorities relied on recent cases that seem like they’re from a movie. In Beijing, a court ruled in favor of a mother demanding control of her deceased son’s eighty-seven verified accounts. Despite the platform trying to block her using aggressive terms of service that label accounts as “non-transferable” property, judges determined that the right to use has clear monetary value and ordered the company to transfer the accounts. Another striking case was the “Golden Blade,” an incredibly rare weapon in a popular MMORPG, whose huge value had to be legally divided between the fallen player’s heir and the guildmate who helped obtain it.

However, Chinese law drew a clear line to protect the dignity of the deceased: while families can inherit Bitcoin wallets, high-level accounts, and profitable social media profiles, purely personal content like chat histories and private messages remains strictly blocked. This stance clashes with Western platforms’ model, where companies insist we own nothing and every digital purchase is just a temporary license that dies with the user. Asian courts have shown that no user agreement can override inheritance rights.

Given that thousands of players invest real fortunes and decades building virtual inventories, do you think Western corporations will eventually yield and adopt this model, or will they continue blocking our accounts to keep the money after our death?