TY - JOUR
T1 - Crime Scene Reconstruction
T2 - Online Gold Farming Network Analysis
AU - Kwon, Hyukmin
AU - Mohaisen, Aziz
AU - Woo, Jiyoung
AU - Kim, Yongdae
AU - Lee, Eunjo
AU - Kim, Huy Kang
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning under Grant 2014R1A1A1006228 and in part by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency in the Culture Technology Research & Development Program 2016.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 IEEE.
PY - 2017/3
Y1 - 2017/3
N2 - Many online games have their own ecosystems, where players can purchase in-game assets using game money. Players can obtain game money through active participation or 'real money trading' through official channels: converting real money into game money. The unofficial market for real money trading gave rise to gold farming groups (GFGs), a phenomenon with serious impact in the cyber and real worlds. GFGs in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are some of the most interesting underground cyber economies because of the massive nature of the game. To detect GFGs, there have been various studies using behavioral traits. However, they can only detect gold farmers, not entire GFGs with internal hierarchies. Even worse, GFGs continuously develop techniques to hide, such as forming front organizations, concealing cyber-money, and changing trade patterns when online game service providers ban GFGs. In this paper, we analyze the characteristics of the ecosystem of a large-scale MMORPG, and devise a method for detecting GFGs. We build a graph that characterizes virtual economy transactions, and trace abnormal trades and activities. We derive features from the trading graph and physical networks used by GFGs to identify them in their entirety. Using their structure, we provide recommendations to defend effectively against GFGs while not affecting the existing virtual ecosystem.
AB - Many online games have their own ecosystems, where players can purchase in-game assets using game money. Players can obtain game money through active participation or 'real money trading' through official channels: converting real money into game money. The unofficial market for real money trading gave rise to gold farming groups (GFGs), a phenomenon with serious impact in the cyber and real worlds. GFGs in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are some of the most interesting underground cyber economies because of the massive nature of the game. To detect GFGs, there have been various studies using behavioral traits. However, they can only detect gold farmers, not entire GFGs with internal hierarchies. Even worse, GFGs continuously develop techniques to hide, such as forming front organizations, concealing cyber-money, and changing trade patterns when online game service providers ban GFGs. In this paper, we analyze the characteristics of the ecosystem of a large-scale MMORPG, and devise a method for detecting GFGs. We build a graph that characterizes virtual economy transactions, and trace abnormal trades and activities. We derive features from the trading graph and physical networks used by GFGs to identify them in their entirety. Using their structure, we provide recommendations to defend effectively against GFGs while not affecting the existing virtual ecosystem.
KW - MMORPG
KW - Online games
KW - game bot
KW - gold farming group
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85007042372&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TIFS.2016.2623586
DO - 10.1109/TIFS.2016.2623586
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85007042372
VL - 12
SP - 544
EP - 556
JO - IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
JF - IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
SN - 1556-6013
IS - 3
M1 - 7727944
ER -
