Brian P Keegan

US Patent:

20130123003, May 16, 2013

Filed:

Feb 21, 2012

Appl. No.:

13/401541

Inventors:

Dmitri Williams - Redondo Beach CA, US
Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad - Minneapolis MN, US
Jaideep Srivastava - Plymouth MN, US
Brian Keegan - Cambridge MA, US
Noshir Contractor - Evanston IL, US

Assignee:

University of Southern California - Los Angeles CA
Northwestern University - Evanston IL
Regents of the University of Minnesota - Minneapolis MN

International Classification:

G07F 17/32

US Classification:

463 29

Abstract:

Gold farming refers to the illicit practice of gathering and selling virtual goods in online games for real money. Although around one million gold farmers engage in gold farming related activities, to date a systematic study of identifying gold farmers has not been done. Here data is used from the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMOG) EverQuest II to identify gold farmers. This is posed as a binary classification problem and a set of features is identified for classification purposes. Given the cost associated with investigating gold farmers, criteria are also given for evaluating gold farming detection techniques, and suggestions provided for future testing and evaluation techniques.