Game-Specific Fraud Prevention
Turn your game data into smarter fraud prevention, higher payment conversion, and fewer chargebacks.
If you're experiencing a high chargeback rate, elevated payment rejection rates, or frequent 3D Secure (3DS) failures, this article is for you.
These challenges may indicate that your payment traffic requires a more tailored fraud prevention approach.
Every game is different. Your players have unique spending habits, engagement patterns, and purchasing behaviors that generic fraud prevention systems may not fully recognize.
At Aghanim, we can use your game-specific data to configure more precise fraud prevention rules tailored to your players and monetization mechanics.
By sharing additional in-game attributes, you help us better distinguish legitimate transactions from potentially fraudulent activity, creating opportunities to improve payment conversion while reducing chargeback risks.
Why Share Game-Specific Data?
Traditional fraud prevention relies on transaction details, payment behavior, and common risk indicators. While these signals are important, they don't always reflect the full context of a player's activity or the unique characteristics of the game itself.
For example, your game may have a primary account linked to multiple sub-accounts (up to 10). Normally, seeing 10 different users sharing the same payment method could raise fraud concerns. However, if this is an expected and legitimate behavior in your game, we can adjust our fraud prevention rules specifically for your game to avoid unnecessary declines.
On the other hand, imagine a player who originally registered in Europe but suddenly starts using payment methods issued on another continent. This could be a potential red flag indicating account compromise. By sharing the player's registration country with us, you enable our fraud prevention system to identify such inconsistencies and potentially prevent fraudulent transactions involving compromised accounts.
Without this context, fraud prevention systems may make incorrect decisions about transactions in your game.
Adding game-specific attributes can help Aghanim:
- Reduce chargeback risks by identifying suspicious patterns more accurately.
- Improve payment conversion by reducing unnecessary declines for legitimate players.
- Refine fraud prevention rules based on actual player behavior rather than generic assumptions.
- Better understand your traffic by combining payment information with in-game engagement and purchase history.
- Adapt to your game mechanics with customized rules for your player base.
The more relevant data we receive, the more opportunities we have to optimize fraud prevention for your game.
Recommended Game Attributes
We've prepared a list of recommended attributes that can help our team analyze player behavior and configure more targeted fraud prevention rules.
Some attributes are marked as Critical.
Critical attributes are the most widely available and straightforward data points across games. They are a recommended starting point because they can often be used to implement effective fraud prevention rules relatively quickly, without requiring complex custom analysis.
We strongly recommend prioritizing these attributes when getting started.
1. Player Registration and Engagement
These attributes help us understand how long a player has been registered and how actively they engage with your game.
| Attribute | Description | Priority |
|---|---|---|
registration_date | Date when the player registered their account. | Critical |
registration_country | Country where the player originally registered their account. | Critical |
activity_time_24h | Total time spent actively playing over the last 24 hours. | Optional |
activity_time_7d | Total time spent actively playing over the last 7 days. | Optional |
activity_time_30d | Total time spent actively playing over the last 30 days. | Critical |
activity_time_90d | Total time spent actively playing over the last 90 days. | Optional |
Why it matters: Registration history and engagement patterns provide additional context for evaluating transactions. These signals can help distinguish established, active players from newly created or potentially suspicious accounts.
2. Player Purchase History
Purchase history helps us understand a player's spending patterns and identify potentially unusual transaction activity.
These attributes should reflect the player's complete purchase history across all payment channels, not just transactions processed through Aghanim. This includes purchases made through the App Store, Google Play, or any previous payment providers you may have used before switching to Aghanim.
| Attribute | Description | Priority |
|---|---|---|
purchases_count_24h | Number of purchases made over the last 24 hours. | Optional |
purchases_count_7d | Number of purchases made over the last 7 days. | Optional |
purchases_count_30d | Number of purchases made over the last 30 days. | Critical |
purchases_count_90d | Number of purchases made over the last 90 days. | Optional |
purchases_count_lifetime | Total number of purchases made since account registration. | Critical |
purchases_amount_24h | Total purchase amount in USD over the last 24 hours. | Optional |
purchases_amount_7d | Total purchase amount in USD over the last 7 days. | Optional |
purchases_amount_30d | Total purchase amount in USD over the last 30 days. | Optional |
purchases_amount_90d | Total purchase amount in USD over the last 90 days. | Optional |
purchases_amount_lifetime | Total purchase amount in USD since account registration. | Critical |
Why it matters: Historical purchase data makes it easier to identify deviations from a player's typical behavior. For example, a high-value purchase may be normal for a player with a long history of spending but unusual for someone making their first purchase.
Understanding these differences can help our team design more precise fraud prevention rules without introducing unnecessary friction for established customers.
3. Player Segmentation and Game Mechanics
These attributes provide additional context about player profiles, account relationships, and game-specific features.
| Attribute | Description | Priority |
|---|---|---|
parent_account_uid | Identifier of the primary account if your game supports multiple linked accounts or users. Helps identify account relationships that may explain shared payment methods. | Optional |
is_whale | Indicates whether the player is classified as a high-value spender ("whale") according to your game's criteria. | Optional |
spending_tier | Player spending segment, such as dolphin, whale, or other tiers defined by your game. | Optional |
player_level | Player's current level or progression status within the game. | Optional |
clan_id | Identifier of the clan or group the player belongs to, if your game supports such mechanics. | Optional |
Why it matters: Players can have very different purchasing patterns depending on their in-game status, progression, and account relationships.
For instance, multiple accounts using the same payment method might appear suspicious in isolation. However, if your game supports linked accounts under a single parent account, this behavior may be expected.
Understanding such mechanics helps us avoid overly restrictive rules and develop a more accurate assessment of transaction risk.
Have Unique Game Mechanics? Tell Us About Them
Not every game follows the same monetization model or player engagement patterns.
Your game may feature specific mechanics, such as linked accounts, shared resources, unique progression systems, special purchasing privileges, or other behaviors that influence how players make payments.
If your game has unique mechanics, please share this information with our team. Understanding these mechanics is valuable even if you don't currently collect additional attributes related to them.
Our team can help identify how certain game features may influence payment behavior, fraud patterns, and chargeback risks.
In some cases, we may also recommend adjustments to game mechanics or purchasing flows that could help reduce chargebacks and improve the overall payment experience.
Can You Send Additional Custom Attributes?
Yes. The recommended attributes are a starting point, not a limitation.
If your game collects additional data related to player behavior, monetization, account relationships, or unique game mechanics, you are welcome to share those attributes with us. These signals may help identify patterns that are not visible through standard payment information.
Please note that implementing fraud prevention rules based on highly customized attributes may require additional analysis, development, and configuration time.
To help us assess your custom attributes, contact your Aghanim Integration Manager or Customer Success Manager and explain:
- What the attribute means: What does it represent, and how is it calculated?
- Why it exists: Which game mechanic or player behavior does it describe?
- When it changes: Is it a static value, or is it updated as the player interacts with the game?
- How it might help: Are there any known behavioral patterns or fraud-related scenarios associated with this attribute?
You don't need to know exactly how an attribute should be used in a fraud prevention rule. Our team can help evaluate its potential value and determine how best to incorporate it into your game's risk assessment.
Start with the Critical Attributes
If you're unsure where to begin, focus on the six Critical attributes:
registration_dateregistration_countryactivity_time_30dpurchases_count_30dpurchases_count_lifetimepurchases_amount_lifetime
These are common, relatively straightforward signals that can provide valuable context about player history, engagement, and spending behavior.
Sharing these attributes can help our team begin developing more targeted fraud prevention rules and identify opportunities to improve your payment traffic.
Additional attributes can then be incorporated to further refine your game's fraud prevention strategy.
Need help?
Contact our integration team at [email protected]