"At least in this case" - can't read the article now, but going by title alone, judicial decisions may be used as basis for future ones, so it could be setting a precedent. Just, considering how UK's legal system currently is, can't tell if it's good or bad.

So, here's the jist of it: Developer hacked dozens of accounts and took their in game gold, and sold it online for $700,000 worth of Bitcoin. Sounds dirty as hell, and he sounds like her needed to be punished for it. But it's got me wondering, who gets the money? The company could just return everyone's gold with the press of a button, so if he pays restitution, who gets it and why?

Judges will often comment specifically in cases like this when decisions are made based on the very specific details of a case versus general case law that might form a general precedent in the future.

Same deal with robbing a bank, they could easily reprint the money.

Imagine being the person who paid 7.9 Bitcoin for stolen Runescape gold that now gets deleted

I really can't sympathetize, neither with buying and then losing that much runescape money, nor with having and then losing that much in bitcoin.

Im pretty sure that was a running total of multiple purchases from various people.