Dangerous Play: AML/CTF/CPF Risks in the Gaming Sector

In this digital age, the rise of new technologies has caused a significant change in how we go about our daily business. The invention and adoption of cryptocurrencies have been one of the most significant recent developments. Given the surge in smartphone usage, cryptocurrency has had a big impact on a number of industries, including the mobile gaming sector. The use of cryptocurrencies has dramatically increased in recent days, with a wide range of uses including investments and transactions in the online gaming sector. With a billion-dollar market cap, the gaming sector is booming and not expected to stop. Every year, new systems and video games are released, giving players fresh things to look forward to. How players pay for their gaming is one area where the i-gaming industry has failed in making changes. The majority of the time, gamers have been forced to use conventional means like credit card payments or Google wallet. But what if a better option existed? What if cryptocurrency could be used by gamers to purchase their games?

This research explores the transformative influence of Blender, an open-source software, on hard surface modeling across educational, industrial, and gaming sectors in Pakistan and China. Despite the growing global adoption of Blender, there is a lack of comparative studies analyzing its impact in diverse socio-economic and technological landscapes. This study addresses this gap by exploring how Blender’s integration differs in these two regions, emphasizing skill development, cost-effectiveness, and innovation. Using a mixed-methods approach involving surveys, case studies, and literature reviews, the findings reveal how Blender is integrated into curricula, supports affordable industrial applications, and enables the creation of gaming assets. Pakistan focuses on cost-effective grassroots initiatives, whereas China relies on structured, government-endorsed strategies for large-scale industrial applications. Educational institutions in both countries show a significant uptake of Blender, with China achieving superior results due to its advanced infrastructure. In the gaming sector, Blender allows Pakistani developers to create globally recognized indie games and empowers Chinese companies to produce AAA titles. Key challenges include limited infrastructure in Pakistan and standardization issues in China. The paper concludes with recommendations for integrating AI, fostering cross-border collaboration, and developing tailored training programs. The study recommends Pakistan emulate China's model with state support for long-term development. Future studies could explore Blender’s role in emerging economies and its future for works designed in the metaverse. The study underscores Blender as an important, affordable tool that balances price with requirements in the field, and securing its position in the global virtual environment.

A retired Japanese veteran, while working at a factory owned by his brother-in-law, discovered the substantial market potential of toys made from recycled materials, prompting him to start a side business. This seemingly modest idea ultimately gave rise to the globally renowned brand—Bandai. What is Bandai, and what entertainment trends has it led? What insights can Bandai offer for the high-quality development of China's cultural industry? This paper focuses on analyzing Bandai's successes and failures in the toy, anime, and gaming sectors, providing valuable lessons for the growth and cultivation of brand culture.

This chapter proposes that games engaging with the global ecological crisis would benefit from engaging with the processes of building and dismantling institutions. We first describe how institutions are at the core of human society, culture and organization. We then discuss the link between games and institutions; subsequently, we discuss game media ecosystems and introduce the value of looking at game design and gameplay as utopian processes. Next, we discuss the need to not only focus on building new institutions but also on dismantling existing, destructive institutions. Finally, we discuss structural changes needed in the game sector—e.g., regarding funding and publishing, game developer education, and platforms—to realize its transformative potential using the concept of imagination infrastructuring.

With the proliferation of entertainment games, supported by heavy investment in the underlying technologies, educators are now examining the educational values of gaming and attempting to incorporate games into their teaching. In Singapore, the game sector is worth many million Singapore dollars (SGDs), and gaming is an engaging activity of the young. Using a survey, this study examined the use of games and simulations in schools. The study was designed to shed light on the use of gaming activities in learning, perception of adoption and use, and problems encountered in teachers’ attempts to adopt games. Factors related to teaching level, experience, and subject were also analyzed for possible influence on teachers’ perceptions of game-related learning.

Bots for Real Time Strategy (Rts) games provide a rich challenge to implement. A bot controls a number of units that may have to navigate in a partially unknown environment, while at the same time search for enemies and coordinate attacks to fight them down. Potential fields is a technique originating from the area of robotics where it is used in controlling the navigation of robots in dynamic environments. Although attempts have been made to transfer the technology to the gaming sector, assumed problems with efficiency and high costs for implementation have made the industry reluctant to adopt it. We present a Multi-agent Potential Field based bot architecture that is evaluated in a real time strategy game setting and compare it, both in terms of performance, and in terms of softer attributes such as configurability with other state-of-the-art solutions. Although our solution did not reach the performance standards of traditional Rts bots in the test, we see great unexploited benefits in using multi-agent potential field based solutions in Rts games.

The gaming market has seen substantial growth in recent years, with securing a larger market share emerging as a key priority for many gaming companies. Among the various marketing strategies available, digital marketing has become an essential tool for the gaming industry, playing a central role in driving player engagement and retention. This paper examines the theoretical framework of digital marketing within the gaming sector, focusing on its core componentssocial media marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, and data-driven advertisingand their influence on player behavior. Through a comparative analysis of the digital marketing strategies employed by Tencent and NetEase, two dominant players in the gaming industry, the study illustrates how these companies utilize digital platforms to enhance player engagement and retention. By synthesizing the best practices from these industry leaders, this paper provides strategic recommendations for gaming companies aiming to optimize their digital marketing efforts and foster long-term player loyalty.

With the rapid advancement of Virtual Reality (VR) technology, its application in the gaming sector has introduced an unprecedented level of immersion for players. This paper aims to explore the integration of VR technology in game design and assess its potential and challenges in enhancing player experiences. The motivation for this research stems from the fundamental differences between VR and traditional games in terms of immersion, interactivity, and multisensory feedback. The paper provides an overview of the basic concepts and principles of VR technology, compares it with traditional gaming technologies, and discusses its role in delivering immersive gaming experiences, enhancing player interaction, and providing multisensory feedback, particularly in multiplayer online gaming contexts. Despite the rapid growth of the VR gaming market, high hardware costs, lack of content, and technical challenges remain significant barriers to widespread adoption. The conclusion of this paper underscores the significance and potential for future development of VR technology in the gaming field, while also identifying key areas for improvement necessary for mainstream acceptance.

This study examined the interaction dynamics and clustering characteristics of cryptocurrencies using MST (Minimum Spanning Tree) analysis based on the daily closing prices of 67 cryptocurrencies traded on Binance. The study included ten cryptocurrencies from the gaming sector and 56 high-market-cap cryptocurrencies. While cryptocurrencies have been analysed from various perspectives using MST in the literature, sectoral analysis has been neglected. This study focused on the categorization of cryptocurrencies and directly on crypto games. According to the MST analysis, crypto games and decentralized exchanges exhibited significant clustering within themselves. Ethereum emerged as the cryptocurrency with the most connections on the network. ENJ held a central position within crypto games, and most crypto games showed clustering among themselves. The intuitive expectation was that Bitcoin would have more connections, dominating the cryptocurrency market. However, the analysis indicated that Ethereum occupies a central position in the cryptocurrency sector.

Recognizing the inadequacy of traditional knowledge-based assessment systems in higher education to discover Learner competencies, we rethink the design of traditional assessment, using approaches that can both respond to the corporate requirements of the twenty-first century and reflect learners' competencies. The serious game sector has gained prominence in the last decade and the need to assess players' competencies in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes has grown. The assessment typically involves analyzing the player's performance in the game environment. At the same time, ontologies have emerged as one of the most popular and widely accepted tools in technology-enhanced learning and assessment. This paper proposes a framework for Competence Assessment based on ontological models for the generation of Personalized Assessment Scenarios, Assessment Portfolios and Personalized Assessment Paths on Serious games. Assessment Portfolios are used to track and store learners' interactions with the games, which can then be used as proof of competence during the assessment process. The personalized assessment scenarios on serious games are formalized with First Order Logic rules that are able to reason over resources annotated with Semantic Web metadata, thus allowing the reusability and interoperability of data.

The article considers the phenomenon of the video game industry growth as the latest trend in the development of the e-commerce market for digital products in the post-pandemic period. The latest technologies and the active promotion of the Internet usage have contributed to the emergence of a new type of games – video games. Video games are gradually replacing regular games and have a direct impact on how Internet users fill their free time, as they offer an expanded range of products and services, both gaming and non-gaming. Features of incomes volumes change in various directions of the entertainment industry for understanding of a share of video games in the general volume of its growth are outlined. The increase in interest in video games has been found to be due to a structural shift in the entertainment industry caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the forced self-isolation of most people around the world. The global costs of video games by types of devices were analyzed, which allowed to form an understanding of the increased interest of users in games presented in a format available for use on smartphones. In 2019, consumers spent $149 billion (excluding equipment) on video games, compared to $35 billion in 2004. The distinctive features of the demographics of gamers in the United States are listed, which can be taken as a basis for marketing research of e-commerce of computer games in other countries. The peculiarities of the marketing campaign of the company "CD Project RED" – a well-known giant on the market of development and implementation of computer games are researched. The key problem of "CD Project RED" management has been extremely high ambitions and the scale of statements that cannot be fulfilled on practice. As a result of marketing activities, gamers' expectations were so high that it was impossible to create a game that would satisfy the excitement that the company's marketers have been creating for eight years. Understanding the mistakes in marketing activities has already allowed the management of "CD Project RED" to smooth out the financial consequences of the previous failure. Unlike most sectors of the economy that suffered from the effects of forced downtime during the COVID-19 pandemic, the gaming sector "went against the flow" and found opportunities where other sectors suffered losses.

The rapid growth of the gaming industry, coupled with its reliance on intricate DNS infrastructure, has rendered it a significant target for cyberattacks, highlighting the need for sophisticated security methodologies. Passive DNS enumeration has emerged as a vital technique for identifying vulnerabilities while ensuring minimal disruption to live services. Nonetheless, the increasing number of passive DNS tools—each varying in data sources, functionalities, and limitations—poses a challenge for organizations aiming to identify the most effective solutions. This paper presents a systematic comparative analysis of prevalent passive DNS enumeration tools, including WHOIS, SecurityTrails, Certificate Transparency (CT) Logs, Shodan, and VirusTotal, assessing their effectiveness in meeting the specific security requirements of the gaming sector. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, this study evaluates tools against criteria such as data accuracy, historical coverage, real-time threat detection, scalability, and compatibility with gaming architectures. A case study of a hypothetical multiplayer gaming platform (example-gaming.com) illustrates practical applications, demonstrating that SecurityTrails excels in retrieving historical DNS records, while VirusTotal offers enhanced threat intelligence for phishing and malware detection. Conversely, Shodan is crucial for mapping exposed services, and CT logs reveal hidden subdomains protected by SSL/TLS certificates. However, the performance of these tools varies significantly depending on the size of the organization: free-tier solutions like crt.sh and WHOIS are adequate for indie developers, while larger gaming studios benefit from premium APIs such as SecurityTrails for extensive automation. The analysis highlights essential trade-offs among cost, coverage, and user friendliness. For instance, while Shodan provides in-depth insights into open ports and services, its dependence on manual query filtering restricts scalability. Similarly, WHOIS data is frequently incomplete due to privacy regulations, compromising its reliability for mapping ownership. The study concludes with actionable recommendations for selecting tools, advocating for hybrid workflows that integrate complementary tools (e.g., CT Logs + VirusTotal) to achieve a balance between cost and comprehensiveness. By addressing the unique challenges of the gaming industry—such as dynamic server allocation, dependencies on third-party services, and latency-sensitive environments—this research establishes a framework for enhancing passive DNS enumeration strategies. Future research should focus on exploring AI-driven automation and ethical guidelines for the utilization of DNS data within live gaming ecosystems.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of gender characteristics in the labor market of Macao and in gaming companies' employee-selection process.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses logistic regression to test the statistical significance of gender characteristics in the labor market and the employee-selection process, while data are drawn from the Statistics and Census Service of Macao. The marginal effects of gender characteristics on the probability of working in the gaming sector and non-gaming sector are calculated for practical significance.FindingsGender characteristics are statistically significant in the labor market. For the age groups of 45–54 and 55–64 years, females with educational attainment (senior secondary or below) tend to have a higher probability of working in the gaming industry, while for the young age groups of 25–34 and 35–44 years, the impact of gender characteristics tends to be much smaller, suggesting that gender inequality is less severe in young age groups. This can be explained by the change in focus of the gaming industry from the traditional gaming component in the past to non-gaming components in recent years.Originality/valueThis paper is intended to give information about the impact of gender characteristics on the labor market of Macao, after controlling for age and educational attainment. Scholars may utilize the insights from this paper to make comparisons between different economies and Macao and investigate whether the findings related to gender characteristics are consistent.

After enduring the impacts of a three-year pandemic, the gaming industry has witnessed a series of remarkable marketing activities. Amidst the continuous unveiling of novel products, the landscape has been disrupted by significant acquisitions among major gaming corporations, breaking the long-standing veneer of silence in the market. Among them a representative case is focuses on Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. By combining an internal and external environment in which Microsoft made its acquisition decision, we analyse meticulously to the rationality and impetus behind the formulation of this strategic initiative. We further analyse the performance impact of this merger and acquisition strategy to further evaluate the effectiveness of the merger and acquisition strategy. Ultimately, based on our analysis, we propose corresponding suggestions sand insights for companies in the process of preparing for acquisitions and those within the gaming sector, with the objective of mitigating potential risks.

The article critically validates the conceptual and operational relationship among bribery, corruption, and money laundering. An understanding of such relationships should benefit the strategies directed at improving awareness and the actions that would steer activism against bribery, corruption, and money laundering. Success of anti-money laundering would bring greater sanity in the financial and monetary systems thus facilitating better growth of humans. The chapter is fundamentally qualitative, discussing related issues and proposing insights. Information and data were gathered from dedicated sources; personal and media. Almost any criminal activity that generates money, assets and action that sooner or later can be liquidated can be a source of dirty money. Banking systems, cash-intensive businesses, the gaming sector, trade or investments, unregulated financial services, and professional advisers are the main participants and conduits in money laundering. Money laundering affects the legality of financial transactions, leads to unreliable changes in the demand for money, poses major risks to a bank’s soundness, and distorts monetary exchange rates due to unanticipated cross-border asset transfers. Globally the risk of money laundering is increasing, and the consequences are proving unbearable. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in 2022 estimated that over USD2trillion is laundered every year, yet we remain without sufficient resources and instruments to fully know, understand, act, and accomplish seamless anti-money laundering strategies on the atomic and molecular level. The article contributes a newer perspective on money laundering as a five-stage project, the mutual propulsion among bribery, corruption and money laundering, and that anti-money laundering is as useful as would be creating full awareness of what it is, how to expose it, and how to think and act decisively together.