This all comes down to the current laws regarding licensing vs ownership, which are far too anti-consumer. You pay for a program or game, but you don't own it. It's a ridiculous setup which of course will result in issues like this and not being able to play a game, as George mentioned. At the very least, any money spent on unspent in-game currency should be refunded, and attempting to keep it should be seen as nothing less than theft which, in this amount, should be a felony.

Ok, this was bound to happen sooner or later right?

"Rentalware" wherein the user pays for the 'privilege of' using a software application for as long as the ACTUAL OWNER feels like allowing it to happen.

"uTransactions" wherein the user pays for extra items to be used with the above application. However again for as long as the actual owner feels like allowing it to happen.

I can think of at least ONE MAJOR software company who's earlier releases came with "keys" that uniquely identified your installation of their application which required "phoning home" to the companies servers to unlock the software (and ensuring that you were not using a unauthorized or pirated copy).

The ONLY problem is, users can't unlock software that they THINK they own if the company's "servers" are no longer running or otherwise validating/unlocking their  licenses. :(