How mobile game developers are leveraging ecommerce strategies to thrive
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Developers and publishers traditionally turn to the app store when launching a new game. But publishers are facing three big challenges when they rely on these platforms to generate all their revenue and discoverability, says Miikka Luotio, regional director of Europe at Xsolla.
“The market for new game development is quite saturated, especially for mobile games,” Luotio says. “It’s harder and harder to get your game seen organically in an endless sea of mobile games right now. If you have a strong product in itself, having a cross-platform strategy should be on the radar.”
“The most talked-about issue is the so-called 30 percent platform tax on all the mobile platforms,” Luotio says. “Every project, every game, as mobile publishers start scaling, they have to calculate that in and remove it from their profits. The question is, how is that justified?”
The platform tax also raises the bar for the profitability of marketing, and slashes the budget considerably. Some publishers are finding it’s harder than ever to run and sustain a marketing campaign.
The second issue is developers’ lack of control over their own player base. For a mobile-only product hosted in the app stores, the only way to communicate or interact with the player base is within those platforms.
“Not being able to own your own players in your own website, or your own ecosystem, hampers publishers who introduce interesting new economics into their player base, such as web3,
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