AppsFlyer: Mobile Gaming Fraud in 2023
Gaming marketers can teach the world how to protect from fraud.
The research is based on 22B installs from January 2022 to February 2023, and 24 thousand apps with 2000+ monthly installs.
General numbers
$5.4B is the overall damage from the fraud activity.
In the second half of 2022, iOS fraud installs increased by 40% compared to the year's first half. On Android, the growth was 46% in the same period.
Games are the most fraud-protected verticals. Fraud numbers in games are 6x times lower than in non-gaming apps.
Fraud in games
The fraud damage to the gaming in 2022 is valued at $206M.
Leaders by fraudulent traffic are Europe, APAC, and North America.
There are relatively low fraudulent numbers in the hypercasual and casual segments - around 1-2%. However, there has been a growth in hypercasual in recent months.
About 4% - 7.5% of fraud traffic in mid-core on iOS. On Android, it’s a little lower - 2.5% - 4%.
Casino games are the most fraud-heavy segment. In the first months of 2023, fraud installs reached 12.72% on Android and 9.3% on iOS.
Fraud methods in gaming
Bots are the main fraud activity in games.
Fake publishers are popular in the hypercasual segment.
Clicks spam is heavily used in mid-core and casino games.
A benchmark by country and verticals is available in the full version of the report.