Owning the Unownable: Legal and Social Perceptions of Virtual Property in Genshin Impact

This study examines how Genshin Impact players perceive ownership of their in-game assets, despite end-user license agreements (EULAs) that grant only revocable licenses and explicitly deny ownership rights. Its central aim is to explore the tension between players' emotional and economic investment in virtual items acquired through gacha mechanics and the legal non-ownership these agreements stipulate. The work adapts Pierce, Kostova, and Dirks's psychological ownership framework, originally developed for organizational settings, to focus on three dimensions: feelings of possession, identity extension, and perceived control. These dimensions are presented as capturing "ownership-like experiences" in spaces where legal property rights are absent.

The empirical component combines an online survey of 300 respondents with twenty semi-structured interviews involving players from China, the European Union, and the United States. Interview data were analyzed through both deductive coding anchored in the three psychological ownership dimensions and inductive coding to capture platform-specific narratives. A comparative doctrinal analysis of EULA versions accompanies the empirical work and finds a consistent pattern of developer dominance, with all versions retaining authority to modify or delete player assets regardless of monetary investment. The study interprets this as an instance of contractual governance, in which user relationships are defined by adhesion contracts rather than property or consumer protection law.

The authors argue that these findings support a case for hybrid legal approaches that recognize limited user rights or consumer interests, better reflecting the time, labor, and capital players invest in virtual worlds. They suggest the analysis may inform policy discussions in jurisdictions such as South Korea and the EU that are exploring digital consumer protections. The study acknowledges that its sample is not statistically representative, given self-selection and online recruitment, and positions its contribution as qualitative insight into how legally non-ownable digital goods acquire social and emotional meaning.