The Science of Defrauding MMOs

I find security issues facing games pretty interesting; PlayNoEvil is one of my favorite spots for discussion about security related issues. Gamasutra sat down with Gene Hoffman, CEO of Vindicia, a billing and fraud management company, about the issues facing MMOs and ways to mitigate those issues. Of particular concern are the RMT resale markets (if it exists), and chargebacks. And what of the mingling of real and virtual economies? Hoffman has this to say: More »

Goodbye Gold Farmers, Hello Gold Frauders

And you thought gold farming was bad. Steve at PlayNoEvil has an interesting analysis up of the next wave of things MMO operators and players will have to worry about: gold frauders. The number of stolen credit cards being used to pay for WoW accounts has led to the UK bank Halifax to block payments to Blizzard, among a few other industry moves to try and deal with the ever-increasing problem of stolen credit cards, illicit RMT transactions, and other money-related issues. What is the problem - and why? More »