Fraud isn’t the right description. Fraud, at least in my jurisdiction, has specific elements. When you:
1: make a statement or representation that you know is false, that
2: you intend to deceive others with, for them to rely on your false statement, that
3: your statement is materially false (that your false statement is not just something trivial or puffery), that
4: the defrauded party does in fact rely on your false statement, that
5: this causes damages, and that
6: you benefit from this misrepresentation
The fact that they did not benefit makes this not fraud. Also, just a glance at it, it would seem hacking is closer to theft than fraud. Still, not a lawyer, take this as a 1L pretending to know what he’s talking about.
Is this technically fraud, given that it’s not real money and the loss was potential earnings (and it’s likely fully-reversible too)?
No money is “real”
Video game currencies technically hold just as much value as fiat currencies in theory.
Here here the loss of potential earnings stuff airways grinds my gears
Fraud isn’t the right description. Fraud, at least in my jurisdiction, has specific elements. When you:
1: make a statement or representation that you know is false, that
2: you intend to deceive others with, for them to rely on your false statement, that
3: your statement is materially false (that your false statement is not just something trivial or puffery), that
4: the defrauded party does in fact rely on your false statement, that
5: this causes damages, and that
6: you benefit from this misrepresentation
The fact that they did not benefit makes this not fraud. Also, just a glance at it, it would seem hacking is closer to theft than fraud. Still, not a lawyer, take this as a 1L pretending to know what he’s talking about.