Every mobile game -- or video game -- developers' dream is to have millions and millions of players playing their title. That's the best way anyone can make money and prove that what they had on their hands is a hit. For the developers of "The Walking Dead: No Man's Land," however, they found out that the success they thought they had was a lie.
"The Walking Dead: No Man's Land" developer Next Games discovered through the use of analytics tools that the players apparently provided by four advertising networks they worked with were bots. VentureBeat reports that Next Games worked with 17 advertising networks that supplied players to the game by integrating the events of the TV series closely with the content of the game.
They used the services of marketing intelligence company, Tune, in order to figure out which "The Walking Dead: No Man's Land" players were real. Doing so will saved them a lot of money in operating costs given the millions of players the game has. Why do these companies resort to these practices, however?
Simple: it brings up their numbers and justify their services to developers like Next Games and games like "The Walking Dead: No Man's Land." Considering that "The Walking Dead" is a very popular TV show with a huge following, it should only make sense that the game would have millions of players.
It does, but it seems that the amount of fans "The Walking Dead: No Man's Land" has isn't equal to the amount that would actually take time out and play the game on their smartphones. Advertising fraud is a real phenomenon happening right now to many companies putting their product out on the internet.
"The Walking Dead: No Man's Land" is only one such advertiser that's losing money, thanks to fraud. White Ops and the Association of National Advertisers released the findings of a study estimating that companies would lose a total of at least $7.2 billion this year alone because of that. Companies like Tune are hard at work on stopping it, and the work they did for Next Games is only but a small victory.