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Hacker Charged With Fraud After 'Stealing' In-game FIFA Currency (cnet.com)
The FBI said it believes a group of hackers made millions off a scam to defraud publisher Electronic Arts. From a report on CNET: A US man is facing felony wire fraud charges for the theft of digital currency from game developer Electronic Arts. According to an FBI indictment, Anthony Clark and his co-defendants are being charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud for "stealing" in-game currency in multiplayer football game FIFA Ultimate Team for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. The indictment details that Clark and three others, named as Ricky Miller, Nicholas Castellucci and Eaton Zveare, members of hacking group RANE Developments, designed an app using the game's source code and developer kit. This app fraudulently told EA's servers that thousands of matches had been completed in the game. These completion reports were rewarded with FIFA coins, which the group sold to what the FBI called "black market" coin dealers. Between them, the group earned $15-$18 million.
If you sell limited-edition prints of a painting, and people buy it because having one out of only a hundred has value to them, then someone making counterfeits is decreasing the value even if they don't directly take from the original creator.
If these game points are considered to have value because they take time, effort or skill to obtain, and then someone finds a way to manufacture more of those points by deception, then clearly it's diminishing the value of the legitimate ones.