Sanlo, a fintech startup that helps gaming companies manage finances, announced Wednesday the closed beta launch of its webshop tool, giving select game developers and studios a plug-in-play solution that works alongside their existing tech stacks. Gaming companies can join the waitlist starting today.
With Google and Apple charging a 30% fee for in-app purchases, it’s more challenging than ever for small- to mid-size gaming companies to run profitable businesses. Gaming giant Epic has complained about Apple’s revenue cut for years now, accusing it of being predatory toward smaller businesses.
As a result, many mobile game developers are no longer relying on app stores for monetization and are turning to external webshops, a rising trend in gaming where companies can run stores on their own websites for a much lower fee (around 4-10%). Plus, webshops are believed to boost revenue since players buy directly from the gaming company, as opposed to from app stores, which take a cut of sales. In fact, Sanlo said developers can earn up to 25% more revenue with a webshop.
“A workshop is one of those super tactical steps that actually proved to show that you can implement revenue from,” Sanlo co-founder and CEO Olya Caliujnaia told TechCrunch. “The reason being that it’s usually your most engaged, loyal players who go to the webshop and they get special offers that allow them to do better in the game.”
Image Credits: Sanlo
With Sanlo’s new webshop tool, game developers get a range of promotional mechanics like exclusive digital items, bundle packs, discounted offers, and loyalty programs to incentivize more players to try the game. Developers can also access player data so they can monitor profiles and purchase activity in order to target individual users with compelling offers.
Companies can test and set pricing “with no price caps,” according to Sanlo. Earnings from webshop sales are deposited into the developer’s account once a week.
One downside about webstores is that Apple
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