Positive Profiling Makes Everyone a Winner in Gaming
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Posted by Amanda Mickleburgh to Fraud Management, Secure eCommerce
Share this:
Online gaming is one of the fastest-growing segments within the broader entertainment industry. With 2 billion active gamers worldwide and 200 million people playing games on social networking sites at least once a day, it is no surprise that the market is now worth well over USD $100 billion per year.
The CX challenge
With a vast array of game genres, devices and channels now available to choose from – as well as an ever-diversifying gaming demographic to please – successfully creating a sustainably monetized game is an increasingly tough challenge for gaming companies.
Customer experience, of course, is the key. Gamers want to spend their game-time playing, not being stuck in administrative processes that interrupt their experience. Players who are prepared to part with their money to enhance their gaming enjoyment don’t want to feel like they have to stop playing to pay – it must be fast, seamless, convenient and secure, giving them no reason to pause, hesitate or exit the game.
Expectations around customer experience mean that hitting the right keys in gaming payments strategy has become vitally important in retaining market share and building long-term customer loyalty.
The fraud vs friction saga
As more and more games are played (and paid for) in the digital world, the gaming sector is being hard-hit by fraud, and customer concerns about security remain high.
Our latest research into the games market shows that 38% of gamers have had a negative experience while paying online and 19% of gamers have experienced fraud when paying for (or within) games online. It also revealed that 33% of gamers are less likely to spend money on games online, or make in-game purchases, because they are worried about payment fraud when using online payment methods. This illustrates that fraud and security are not issues that gaming merchants can simply afford to ignore.
On the flipside, 44% of paying gamers in the US, and 36% in the UK, said that encountering extra security measures when making in-game purchases slows down and negatively impacts their gaming experience – making them less likely to complete a purchase.
So, fraud is a problem, security is a concern and we know that friction in a gaming payments experience is a no-go – how can gaming merchants solve this ongoing puzzle?
Positive profiling: the data-powered hero
As with a good strategy game, understanding patterns and behaviors – of the good guys and the bad guys – is the key to a successful outcome. And that doesn’t just apply to your attempts to defeat the villain (in this case, the fraudster). Solid information and an understanding of positive behavior can also help form beneficial alliances (in this case, loyal customer relationships).
The way to achieve this is through positive profiling – a way to use customer data to proactively profile both good customers and fraudsters.
Positive profiling requires a wealth of data and the ability to thoroughly interrogate that data to build actionable intelligence. But, to make it truly powerful, it has to include consortium data – global transactional data and known fraud intelligence from across a variety of merchants (and preferably issuers too), which helps to paint a more accurate picture of each customer by looking at their payments behavior, both inside and outside of a merchant organization.
With an increasing number of gaming converts across a variety of demographic groups, the ability to see beyond the borders of a merchant’s own data is invaluable in both spotting fraud and supporting new customers. For instance, even if a merchant is seeing a paying player for the first time – consortium data can indicate a genuine customer via the data points and time on file history with other merchants.
Digital identity: the secret weapon
Positive profiling allows merchants to create digital identities for customers, based on automated, in-depth analysis of broad and deep customer data and fraud intelligence.
This can be a vital weapon in the battle against fraud, but it can also reduce friction by helping to accurately identify genuine customers; giving merchants the opportunity to tailor their payments experience, adapt the security measures that are used and process their payments faster. The result: reduced friction, fewer false positives, an improved customer experience and increased conversions.
For gaming merchants that have to balance instant customer fulfillment and an engaging player experience with the need for robust, seamless security, digital identity can open the door to success by helping to beat fraud and secure the coveted prize of player loyalty.
Find out more about the benefits of positive profiling in fraud prevention in our new eBook the 6 Step Guide to Using Machine Learning to Drive Payments Intelligence.
Related Blog Posts
Payments in a Post-Coronavirus World: How the Pandemic Is Influencing Tomorrow’s Industry in Latin America
While the novel coronavirus has (understandably) dominated the day-to-day focus of today’s payment players, the fact is, at some point we will either fully adapt or be living in a post-coronavirus world. How can our industry prepare? In a recent webinar hosted by Fintech Americas, we brought together experts from Redeban Multicolor, Red Link and PROSA to explore where they see the industry going – with a specific emphasis on Latin American markets – and what they’re doing to ensure future success.
The Pandemic Has Accelerated the New Era of Acquiring
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated many trends already taking shape in consumer purchasing behavior. Almost overnight, routine activities ranging from picking up groceries to buying gas unexpectedly became something that they had never been before – risky.
How National Central Infrastructure Initiatives for Real-time Payments Create Immediate Business Opportunities for Merchants
More and more countries and regional alliances are investing in the creation of new financial market infrastructures. Governments and leaders of central banks have decided that the finance industry needs investment to be fit for the demands of digital economies, suitable for the trailblazing businesses of the fourth industrial revolution.
Payments Modernization in the Cloud: An Inflection Point in the History of Payments
Public cloud is one of the big buzzwords in payments right now. While a few years ago financial institutions were reluctant to embrace the technology, they are now among the most likely to do so. ACI discussed the topic of Payments Modernization in the Cloud during a recent webinar, moderated by Finextra’s Head of Research Gary Wright. Katrin Boettger caught up with the panellists — Ciaran Chu, head of cloud at ACI; Peter Hazou, business strategy leader at Microsoft and Lu Zurawski, practice lead, retail banking at ACI — about why the COVID-19 pandemic might be a further catalyst for the worldwide adoption of cloud technology.
Brazil’s Digital Payments Transformation: Five Key Takeaways
Brazil has abundant growth opportunity when it comes to digital payments, with PIX – the Central Bank of Brazil’s new instant payments system – expected to have a significant impact. This was evident during a recent webinar Digital Transformation into Payments, hosted by Mercado & Consumo em Alerta and featuring experts from Getnet, Pernambucanas, Conductor and ACI.
From "Access to Cash" to "Access to Digital" – How Innovative Thinking Is Keeping SMEs Trading
With millions of people in London and the wider U.K. having endured lockdowns and restrictions, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive impact on our shopping habits. While some supermarkets have struggled to keep up with customer demand and social distancing rules, many small, local business have adapted to the crisis quickly, efficiently and in innovative ways. While supermarkets have run out of delivery slots, smaller businesses are now offering local deliveries whilst providing safe digital payments options. They are also selling goods that the big supermarkets have run out of because traditional supply chains have been interrupted.
Taking the Pulse of Biometric Authentication in 2020
Growing demand for digital payment methods in recent years, including a plethora of mobile payments and person-to-person payment applications, has already put biometric authentication firmly at the forefront of payments and fintech. Moreover, the COVID-19 global health crisis has introduced new norms that have discouraged non-essential physical interaction, which has further boosted the popularity of digital payment alternatives. Already in March, CNBC noted that there had been a surge in the number of Americans preferring ‘”tap and go” transactions through digital wallets, like Apple Pay or Google Pay, overwhelmingly secured with biometric (mainly fingerprint) authentication.
COVID-19 Crisis Will Accelerate Launch of New Digital Payment Services Underpinned by Real-Time Payments
The COVID-19 crisis, and the fact that many millions have been self-quarantining at home, contributed to a spike in eCommerce growth in sectors such as retail and gaming and changing payment behaviors. Katrin Boettger spoke to Adam Needel, principal solution leadership manager —real-time payments, to discuss the impact the crisis may have on the future of digital and real-time payments.
When It Comes to Payments, COVID-19 Crisis Could Lead to Long-Term Shifts in Consumer Behavior [Q&A]
ACI Worldwide and GlobalData recently launched Prime Time for Real-Time, a new global report tracking and analyzing real-time payments volumes, growth and dynamics across 30 global markets. According to the global research, an industry first, more than half a trillion real-time payments transactions will be processed over the next five years. I discussed what the findings mean, and how the COVID-19 pandemic might be a further catalyst for behavioral change, with ACI’s global head of real-time payments, Craig Ramsey.
Women in Payments: Celebrating International Women’s Day 2020
International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8, honors the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women – including equality for all women.
To commemorate the occasion, we spoke with a few female leaders in the payments industry about what the day means both for them and for the wider payments industry. The comments and insights we received were nothing short of inspiring and encouraging.