Podcast: Play in new window
It's different this time, this is a landmark case.
I suspect the threats of physical violence are what brought it to the supreme court. What's particularly interesting is how the court handled that a thing doesn't have to be translateable into real world currency to be counted as something that can be stolen. Especially since nominally players don't even own their virtual goods, they own the right to those virtual goods in those instances provided by the gaming companies.