Egaming suffers due to low-security operators, study shows

The online gaming industry’s reputation suffers with users as little differentiation is made between operators that place a high importance on security and those that do not, according to new research.

A study published by payment authentication business VeriSign in association with polling company YouGov highlighted the threats to online gaming brands should they break the implicit bonds of trust between them and their players.

VeriSign commissioned YouGov to survey users on their views of the online gaming industry using what it has termed the ‘Net Promoter Score’ (NPS). The NPS asks how likely users would be to recommend a company on 10 point scale, and splits the users into ‘promoters’, ‘passive’ or ‘detractors’ based on their grading; then calculates the NPS score by subtracting the number of detractors from the number of promoters.

YouGov found that detractors massively outnumbered promoters when it came to online gaming, leading to a Net Promoter Score of -27, with 45% of the sector’s customers falling into the detractor category. Online gaming as a whole had the lowest range of scores of any sector.

The reasons for the negative view of the industry were varied, but many centred on the fact that many of the respondents did not feel operators were obvious enough in how they ensured the security of users’ data and identity.

Martin Mackay, president of Europe, Middle East and Africa for VeriSign, said: “Security is what enables online gaming companies to win and retain customers. If the players have the perception that an operator doesn’t guarantee security of data in the products they offer, that can have a massive impact on that operator’s ability to grow.”

Mackay was speaking as part of the Reputation Matters event last week, which saw a range of industry experts discuss the key factors in how users viewed or trusted online gaming operators.