Posted on September 28th, 2009 by Tom Grubb
If someone told me a few years ago that people would pay real money for goods that aren’t real—virtual goods that only exist in digital form—I would have joked that I had a virtual Brooklyn Bridge to sell them. Well the laugh’s on me if the buzz at the Virtual Goods Conference in San Jose this week is any measure of where the VG industry is today and where it’s heading. There’s real money changing hands for virtual goods in social gaming and lots of people are working hard to figure how to make it pay even more.
If you’re new to the world of virtual goods, here’s a great overview written by Lora Abe, director of marketing for Gambit, a leading payments engine for online games. Gambit’s booth was right next to ours at the conference (thankfully they let us play their pinball machine during the low-booth-traffic intervals). Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Online Fraud, social gaming, virgual goods summit, virtual fraud, virtual goods conference, virtual goods fraud
Posted in Device Fingerprint, Device ID, Device Identification, Events, Social Networks | 1 Comment »
Posted on July 17th, 2009 by Tom Grubb
Attention social gamers: online fraud has officially arrived. All the players at the table-Nickelodeon, PopCap, Epic Games, Big Fish-really everyone is exposed to cybercrime. As evidence look no further than Offerpal Media’s announcement yesterday of OfferpalSECURE, a new security and fraud prevention product just released with several new features.
Fraud you ask? In casual gaming? Bet on it. Offerpal’s press announcement yesterday says “security experts estimate that when left unchecked, as much as 50% of a gaming publisher’s transactions for intangible goods like virtual currency can be fraudulent-especially if player-to-player transfers are allowed.” TrustWho Founder and CEO Marcus Eikenberry, whose company offers anti-fraud technologies and services to the video game industry goes on to say “and the problem will get worse if it isn’t tackled immediately, because scammers and hackers only become emboldened by their early successes.”
Check out Offerpal’s blog entry for more insights into fraud and casual gaming. It’s worth noting that “machine fingerprinting” (device identification) is called out as a means to prevent fraud such as when scammers attempt to use multiple accounts “in order to game the system.”
ThreatMetrix will be at the Casual Connect conference in Seattle next week as a conference co-sponsor -stop by and visit us and Offerpal if you’re there.
- Tom
Tags: Casual Connect, casual gaming, Device Detection, Device Identification, Device Reputation, fraud prevention, Machine Fingerprint, machine fingerprinting, offerpal, Online Fraud, social gaming
Posted in Account Compromise, Device Detection, Device Fingerprint, Device Identification, New Account Registration, Online Fraud Trends, PC Fingerprint | No Comments »
