GBGroup’s ICE protest makes serious data point

Last week’s ICE Totally Gaming saw GBGroup stage a ‘protest’ outside of the ICE gaming convention at ExCel London. Advocating a trust economy, the protesters ‘represented’ gaming users who are campaigning for better recognition by gaming operators of their individual identity.

The protesters argued that gaming companies should be better able to identify their customers and recognise their individual needs more quickly. Companies need to really understand their customers, reliably providing a good player experience even when they have to perform rigorous security and identity verification checks.

Similarly, gamers want to be recognised as individuals across all channels. They suggest that players currently perceive a divide in the give and take relationship over data; they regularly share personal details only to receive generic emails as a result. Players would rather be identified quickly and are keen to develop stronger relationships with their chosen gaming providers – but only if they can trust that their behavioural data is being used to understand them and provide bespoke communications and even product recommendations that they will value. This sense of trust is paramount. The argument goes that players are happy to share their data as long as they feel they are being seen as individuals, and not just as a ‘profile’.

While the industry is well ahead of other sectors in terms of applying this identity data intelligence; not only monitoring transactions for fraud but also ensuring the customer isn’t in a potentially vulnerable state where they may not be able to afford to play, GBGroup’s stunt was pulled to suggest that, as a multi-billion dollar industry, online gaming providers can still do more. And that this is especially true in terms of joining up their view of players across online, mobile and in-store channels to have a single, unified view of each individual customer, even if they’re offline.