You cannot steal virtual goods, and it is not morally wrong to do so.

Thank you for your response. "Pro contends that items in the game do not exist so they cannot be "stolen". I disagree. The [shield of female repulsion] with +50 strength and +80 parry rating may not be a real shield, but it does have value. If such items had no value, we would not have a massive market illegally selling such pixel candy. The value comes from its use in game." Please allow me to give an example as well. We have Mrstabby a level 70 rogue. Although Mrstabby cannot own items in the real world perhaps he can virtually own items. This is not the place to offer a robust theory of virtual people and property, but it's likely that any such account will treat Mrstabby as a virtual person and a [Warglaive of Azzinoth] as his virtual property. So when Mrstabby ninjas, I will call the ninjae Mcstabsalot, [Warglaive of Azzinoth], there won't be any real world or didgital theft taking place. At best there will be virtual theft. Does it follow then that there is no moral dilemma? I think so. Let me now defend that there is no moral agent. There are only two plausible candidates for moral agency: the real person playing Mrstabby, and Mrstabby himself. Suppose the person playing Mrstabby were morally responsible for everything done by Mrstabby. The player would then be morally responsible for all the creatures killed by Mrstabby. My opponent might distinguish between NPC's and PC's, and hold that players are only morally responsible for actions against PC's. But I don't think this is a principled distinction to use when considering questions of existence or morality. The PC Mcstabsalot is no more real than the NPC Thrall: they both "exist" in the same virtual world and are subject to the same limitations thereof. NPC's are indirectly controlled by Blizzard's programmers; PC's are directly controlled by other (human) players and sometimes by (non-human) bots.I just don't see how this relatively minor difference could motivate such a substantial moral distinction. Moreover, treating players as moral agents yields conclusions counterintuitive to the spirit of the game. For example, PC's regularly kill one another in BG's like Arathi Basin, in contested zones like Shadowmoon Valley, outside instances, and in major cities like Ironforge. It would be absurd to hold players responsible morally or criminally liable for the thousands of PC's they've killed. Mrstabby is no more viable as a moral agent. It doesn't make sense to talk about holding Mrstabby accountable for his actions because Mrstabby isn't the kind of person, virtual or otherwise, that makes decisions. If you ninja your friends sword it's no defense to claim that it was Mrstabby, not you, who took it: your friend won't simply insist that you play as a different character, but rather he will refuse to play with you altogether. But he won't hold you morally culpable- it would be unreasonable for your friends to worry that yes steal items from their real world homes. It would be quite understandable if they stopped playing with you or thought you were a lousy friend, perhaps claiming that you take the game too seriously or ruin other's fun. But they could not accuse you of being an immoral thief who should be locked away. Neither you nor Mrstabby is a viable candidate as a moral agent. As such, there is nobody to hold morally liable for ninjaing. Therefore, ninjaing cannot be immoral. In-game ninjas can do no wrong because there is no moral agent to hold morally accountable. What I'm saying is that there is no way to hold a character or it's player responsible for ninjaing. Therefore you cannot be held in morally responsible. Also to argue that the item's are not real. They may have value to a player however this does not mean they are given an existence as a real item that can be stolen. I hope that this A. clears up some more of what I said and B. Refutes my opponent sufficiently.