Multiplayer game developer decreased chargebacks by 80% and proactively blocked linked accounts with Persona’s Graph & KYC solutions
With Persona, a Web3-focused multiplayer game studio was able to take a more proactive approach to fraud-fighting.
The company, known for developing and publishing console-quality multiplayer games for both web and mobile, had recently launched an NFT marketplace. This platform enabled users to purchase NFT packs, trade individual NFTs, earn NFTs by playing games, and more.
Problem: The studio’s fraud investigation process was manual and ill-equipped to pinpoint and fight coordinated fraud attacks
The studio’s head of compliance knew identity verification (IDV) was vital for several reasons.
For one, it’s required in certain situations. “KYC is mandated by our payment processor that helps us on-ramp and off-ramp funds,” he shared. The team also anticipated more laws to come. “Since we’re in the digital currency market, there will be a lot of regulations. We want to be at the forefront and be proactive about getting ahead of future regulations instead of simply reacting to them.”
However, the company understood that verifying users was more than just a requirement — it was also an effective way of detecting fraud and building trust, especially in marketplaces. Its executive producer, who worked closely with the compliance lead to balance fraud mitigation and community growth, explained, “Web3 and gaming companies typically don’t do KYC, but we’re trying to change the standard. KYC is how we make sure users that join our NFT drops are real people — not bots. Knowing who our users are helps us build a safer community.”
While KYC can help weed out bad actors, it’s not 100% foolproof. The company’s main challenge was combating bots and other large-scale fraud attacks where the same risky signals (IP address, device fingerprint) showed up across a group of accounts. These fraud rings were not only time-consuming to catch, but also posed a huge risk to the business if they were not dealt with swiftly.
Unfortunately, like many companies, the game studio’s old approach to examining and dealing with fraudsters wasn’t ideal. “Our fraud investigations were very limited — we relied on our development team to manually query our database to find linked accounts,” the executive producer shared. “This was costly, and it took a long time to complete.”
The company knew this resource-intensive approach wasn’t scalable, as it was taking valuable time away from its development team’s other initiatives. And as the business added more games, functionalities, and partnerships, it expected more users — and subsequently, more fraud. “Once you have more visibility, fraud rings start to hit,” the executive producer explained.
The studio knew it needed to get ahead of fraud before it became a real problem, so it turned to its existing identity partner, Persona, for help.
Solution: The studio used Persona’s fraud investigation and link analysis tool to find and ban fraudsters faster
Graph is Persona’s fraud investigation and link analysis tool that helps businesses catch more bad actors by surfacing risky connections — even those multiple degrees away — between user accounts. The company appreciated that Graph could not only give it more visibility into the reach of fraud rings, but also equip its compliance team to handle investigations on their own using the configurable, no-code query editor.
The studio relied on Graph for:
Busting existing fraud rings
Graph helped the company quickly identify how users are connected via common attributes, which is helpful because shared properties often indicate bots or duplicate accounts. “Graph visually shows us clusters of users that are connected by key properties — for example, those who have the same IP address or device fingerprint,” the compliance lead explained.
After a quick implementation with minimal engineering lift, the team identified a cluster of 40 users with similar properties without manually querying its database. While not necessarily indicative of fraud on its own, the compliance lead explained that “some of these users were trying to manipulate the system by trying to KYC for someone else.”
With Graph, not only was the studio able to spot the fraud ring, but it was also able to quickly take action by bulk tagging and blocking these bad actors. “We didn’t want these users to manipulate our markets or commit fraud before we had time to stop the activity,” the compliance lead shared, “so in order to protect our verified community, we terminated our relationship with all 40 users.”
Investigating and proactively stopping hard-to-catch fraud
Aside from major fraud rings, the team also used Graph to investigate and catch smaller, less-obvious instances of fraud. “We don’t always know if someone’s doing something wrong — it’s possible two users just happen to be in the same region,” the compliance lead said. “For any kind of initial investigation process, Graph is our go-to tool to uncover linked or suspicious account patterns. It’s a great tool to use as a starting point of any fraud investigation.”
For example, if his team noticed suspicious activity, they put the account info into Graph and tried to see if they could find clusters of linked accounts. “By linking common traits like device fingerprint or location, Graph helps us either verify our suspicion or complete our investigation,” the executive producer added. From there, the team adapted their automated workflow logic to include the latest risk signals to proactively block future fraud from the same fraud ring.
With Graph, the company was able to pinpoint illegitimate transactions and users with multiple accounts, which it doesn’t allow. “We use Graph in any way possible to prevent fraud for us. From users trying to circumvent KYC or create more than one account to those committing fraudulent transactions under non-KYC accounts, Graph helps us identify these tricks,” the compliance lead shared. “We never would have been able to catch these instances without Graph.”
Results: the company decreased chargebacks by 80% by taking a more proactive approach to fraud-fighting
Ultimately, Graph benefited the company in a number of ways. “From a compliance perspective, Graph has saved us time and lowered our headcount need, which means our team can operate more efficiently and focus their time on complex cases instead. And from a fraud perspective, Graph combined with Persona’s KYC solution has lowered our fraud rate considerably,” the compliance lead said.
While headcount and time benefits can be difficult to quantify, the executive producer also shared that Graph concretely helped the company’s bottom line. “With less fraud, our number of chargebacks has gone down, which is great because we get fined for every chargeback we incur,” he said. “Plus, on the development side, Graph’s made my life a lot easier because [the compliance lead isn’t] bothering me all the time,” he joked.
Perhaps most importantly, the team shared that Graph helped alter how they approach fraud in general — for good. “The last thing I want is to react to fraud cases after the damage has already been done,” the compliance lead shared. “The biggest advantage of Persona's Graph tool is that we can proactively block fraud incidents before they happen with automated decisioning. So we’re going from more reactive to proactive. And from a compliance perspective, that’s a home run.”
