By and large, video games are based around the principle of good guy versus bad guy. To defeat the bad guy(s), the good guy generally must deploy a multitude of weapons and devices through various levels, while not suffering too much damage.
If it’s your job to defeat fraud, this probably sounds familiar. Unfortunately, as gaming has increased in popularity (particularly during the pandemic) and new revenue opportunities are developed, game makers now find themselves fighting more and more bad guys.
Today’s Top Gaming Fraud Threats
Much like the avatars offered to gamers, gaming fraud takes on many different forms. In particular, ACI has seen a rise in fraud related to secondary markets and account takeover. When it comes to secondary markets, players will purchase virtual currency or in-game items using stolen cards and credentials, which they then sell to other players.
Account takeover is a rapidly rising form of fraud, growing by 114 percent year-over-year in 2020 according to ACI data. This fraud type is exactly what it sounds like, with a player’s account credentials being stolen and used for nefarious purposes.
Combating these rising fraud types — and others — doesn’t rely on a secret weapon or special code. To beat the big bads of fraud, game makers must deploy an all-encompassing approach.
A Full Arsenal of Fraud-Fighting Tools
To help game makers protect themselves and their players, ACI deploys an all-encompassing toolset driven by machine learning. This helps maximize the wealth of player data at hand to automate decision-making and ensure greater accuracy in sorting good transactions from fraudulent ones.
ACI also deploys agnostic payment and fraud applications to screen all transactions in real time. These tools bring payment and event data together in such a way that game makers can instantly tell whether a given electronic message will drive revenue or new losses.
This is all backed by dedicated payment optimization experts. These experts increase the effectiveness of the comprehensive solution by leveraging global data to surface timely fraud analytics that showcase changing fraud patterns and trends.
While fraud and gaming have many parallels, the one major distinction is that unlike games, fraud has no last level or final boss. Winning the fight against fraud relies on capabilities that are faster, smarter and more sophisticated than fraudsters — and can grow as conditions demand. Game makers must take advantage of comprehensive solutions to ensure the good guys win.
For more information on the unique challenges of gaming fraud and how ACI is helping its customers, read this article from The Paypers featuring Erika Dietrich, head of risk services at ACI.
ACI Fraud Management for Merchants 
