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We're raising our long-term direct-to-consumer revenue percentage goal from 30% to 40%.

Meaning, they expect over the long term for 40% of their revenue to come from direct-to-consumer channels.

The most important is the target that they set there.

Chip mentioned that 40% is their target now, which is again, I would say, which is huge.

Yeah, it is huge.

It's huge.

It's huge.

Last time we thought we heard this number being tossed around when we were talking about AFK Journey and like some related games that they're they're doing like 40%.

That was the hint we got from our Chinese friend.

But KUA master eyes on the prize, tracking data through the cyberspace skies.

Felix stacks colors like a wizard in disguise.

Jack ups crafter realms, lift up to the highs.

Two and a half gamers talking smack.

Slow hockey sick, got your back.

Ads are beautiful, they like the way.

Click it fast, don't delay.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Hello, hello, hello, hello.

Welcome to another episode.

And this is special.

Oh, no, I think it's extra special again, because everything is special.

And this one is extra special.

We have Chip on the podcast again from Fast Spring.

Welcome, Chip.

Thanks, Matei.

Happy to be back on today.

Okay,

and we're going to talk about some interesting stuff because last time we had an emergency episode and we're talking about the Apple ruling.

Now we have Google ruling as well.

And we have some interesting updates because

time passed since the last episode.

But before we start, my name is Matthiel Ancherich.

I'm Felix Brahlberg.

And I'm Jakubremier.

And

we are

your

host.

Host.

So, Chief, this is you.

This is you.

Chief, if you want to jump in and introduce yourself again, just briefly, so everybody knows who you are and which company you represent.

Yeah, absolutely.

First, thank you for omitting me from that wonderful introduction.

I think that was great.

So, I'm Chip.

I'm the head of gaming here at Fast Spring.

We're a direct-to-consumer payment platform.

We power web stores and web shops.

For me personally, I'm coming from game development.

So, I left Scopely back in October where I was heavily involved in our direct-to-consumer strategy.

I was there for a few years.

I was at SciPlay for a few years before that.

So, I'm really focused on taking that experience, helping our customers and the industry overall to market and monetize direct-to-consumer.

And as we like to say during the podcast,

though drama did see partner with real-world experience at scale, FastSpring is a partner you can trust with your players.

So if you want to quickly launch a new web store, go to fastspring.gg.

There you go.

Chip, tell us what has happened since our last emergency podcast in the world of payments.

Because I am noticing, at least from my clients, that the kind of conversation or the Overton window has really shifted when it comes to payments.

Tell us what's going on.

Yeah, absolutely.

Things have shifted quite a bit.

And I think it's important to reflect on things since we last spoke.

Because when we spoke, it was, I think, four days after the ruling had dropped.

It was instant reaction, right?

So it was very uncertain.

We talked about kind of hypotheticals, what it could look like, what it could be, what impact it could have.

But now the dust has settled on a lot of that.

We can talk about it with a lot more certainty.

The first thing that I think has become evident to me is that there are these gradients to steering that have emerged.

Because as a reminder, this Apple ruling is really impactful because it unlocked steering, meaning navigating players from the mobile game to an off-platform payment solution.

And

as we've seen that evolve, we've seen it not be this binary either you're steering or you're not.

We've seen it say, okay, there's kind of a basic form of steering that's very conservative, and then there's increasing aggressive layers to steering.

And we can talk through that, but I've seen companies really start to dip their toe and get a bit more aggressive for those that are pursuing it and see a lot more impact as a result.

So, to start, the most conservative version of kind of what I'm alluding to here is just a banner in your store.

Say, we can have a banner in the store, maybe an interstitial pop-up in the game, something that talks about a web store.

That's something we couldn't do before this ruling.

You couldn't even really talk about the existence of your web store.

That would have been non-compliant with the rules that Apple and Google had established.

Now we can just have that banner.

And even just having that banner and driving that critical awareness for a web store has been impactful.

That's been enough to shift significant revenue over there.

And then a step beyond that might be, okay, let's talk about the pricing benefit.

Let's talk about, okay, you can get 10% more value, 20% more value as a player if you go purchase on the web store and being a bit more explicit about what you can drive.

And some companies are saying, okay, we're good with the banner.

Now let's start layering in this value component.

We're seeing a bit more.

And there's more places we can go beyond that but i'm curious what you guys think about that no the thing i wanted to ask here right like the thing that sticks out to me is playtika's last quarterly earnings when the ceo robert he was bragging on the quarterly earnings about 20 of their payments going through their web store

that would not have happened a year ago that would not have happened six months ago that's crazy is that kind of the amounts that you're seeing right now with big publishers that's going through non-google and non-apple payment solutions

Yeah, there's so many factors that impact the overall percentage that it's hard to put this overall number on it.

For instance, these rulings are still confined to the United States.

And so if you're a game where not much of your revenue is driven in the United States, well, you won't be benefiting from these rulings as much.

So if the lion's share of your revenue is in the States, then you can drive more revenue there.

And so I think of it more how much revenue can you drive within these steering policies and how much revenue can you drive with them.

Within the United States, I think it's still reasonable to say at a most basic level, we can get 25% of our revenue through there just by driving this awareness.

But then, as we get more aggressive, we could get to 40-50%

by being more explicit and by removing some of that friction from players in ways we can talk about.

Instead of just, let's say, a banner,

what are the other options instead of the banner?

Like, where should we just

take a look at some games that are actually sending messages to drive players to the web shop shop or tiles in the stores or items in the offers menus and these types of things.

Yeah, yeah.

Now you're getting into the really impactful stuff, which is

so

the banner is where you might start, right?

And I see this traditional evolution with publishers that they say, we're going to start with just

notifying players about it.

Then we'll talk a little bit about the value.

Then the next step might be side-by-side pricing in the store, side-by-side value, where you say for a $9.99 purchase, you get 100 gems, or if you go to the web store, you get 120 gems.

And so you put that right in front of the player in the mobile store.

You can put those right next to each other and make it really clear, like, hey, we go over here.

You're going to get more by purchasing there.

A great example for this of a specific game would be Fortnite.

When you go to make a purchase in Fortnite on iOS in the United States, when you get to that checkout point inside the game, they say, do you want to purchase on mobile or do you want to go to the web store where you'll get more for what you're purchasing?

And they hit you right at that point of purchase and really try to nudge you over there.

And so we see that as an increasing, at an increasing level of adoption, where we're seeing more publishers start to go that route to be a bit more aggressive with it.

And the other component to this that's really interesting and I think will be really impactful is the landing page.

So when this has started up until now, traditionally steering has taken players from the mobile game into the web store.

That's been,

that's kind of version one.

Again, the more conservative approach.

Well, now we're saying, let's try taking players directly into the checkout page.

Let's not worry about taking them into any store.

We're going to take them to a checkout page where it's still on a browser.

You're still exiting the mobile game and going into your browser to a website.

But on that page, it's just your checkout.

You've got your item you selected from the mobile game.

You've got maybe your player account linked, your payment method selected.

You just need to hit checkout, you check out, and then boom, it kicks you right back into the game.

So it's a really frictionless experience that, again, is still okay because it's steering players off-platform.

It's steering them into this browser, and then you're taking them right back into the game afterward.

I remember like everything, like when everybody was switching about how

really sketchy this is going to be, and how many steps in between we need to take and then go back.

And oh my God, please don't do it, guys, because we can't track

apple

yeah

and a lot of other people obviously mainly yeah yeah i think

the friction was definitely a significant barrier to adoption and but even with that friction we still saw games succeeding in direct-to-consumer before these rulings came through and now with these barriers with these rulings coming through and removing those barriers removing that friction and saying we can take players directly into that uh checkout page and go right back into the game Yeah, that will certainly increase direct-to-consumer adoption.

How does it actually work, right?

So let's just say a hypothetical client, like let's, for example, say Scopely.

Let's say, for example, they work with Fastspring.

I don't know if they do or not, but like a user who makes a purchase, for example, on Fastspring, do they need to make an account with Fastspring?

And then basically they can use it for any other games that also work with Fastspring?

Or how does that work?

No, no, it's through the game, right?

So if the game has player account and we would take that information from the game, sell it through the player.

We would retain the safe payment information connected to that account.

And so we could do that to take it back through.

But yeah, it's really reliant on the game and the authentication to come through them.

But actually, at one point you reminded me of, Felix, is we have a feature.

I think I could talk about this.

We haven't published any information around this new solution we're offering yet, but it's called Steer Safe with FastSpring.

And it's essentially just that.

And it's really built around that security of not just for the publisher, but also also for the player, and saying it's a very secure payload that we're passing through with that kind of information.

And so it's really built to accommodate this experience where players go directly into this checkout page, but they can do that with confidence, and the publisher can do that with confidence.

And so they go tap on the item they want in the mobile game, takes them to the checkout page, they check out right there, they go back into the mobile game, it's as seamless as possible.

We're talking less than 10 seconds from game start to finish for this purchase.

And we're pretty confident in how that solution will improve adoption.

But it's really built around these rulings.

And it's not even a new product.

It's just saying, here's how you could take the existing product and the existing services we offer and use that as a way to drive that revenue.

You have to say two and a half steps ahead.

That's why you listen to this podcast.

Look at that.

It's propping new knowledge.

So, does that mean that pretty much all these payment providers now are in an arms race to get as many users as possible?

Because the more users you have, the more powerful your platform will be.

I wouldn't call it an arms race.

I think it's a competitive space.

I can say that.

But I would also say, like any technical service, a payment provider has bandwidth, right?

If every publisher in the world came to Fastspring and said, we want to work with you and process our payment, I mean, I think we might be able to find a way to accommodate that, but it would be challenging, right?

It would break our systems.

We pride ourselves on having the scale to be able to accommodate this, but I say that to say that's why I think it's healthy.

I think it's really healthy that there are so many great payment providers in the space.

Fastspring, I think, is obviously a great fit for most, but we won't be the right fit for everybody.

And so that's okay, too.

Yeah.

I found a few

examples, actually, somewhere online.

And I think we have way more.

I mean, you mentioned.

I also have an example by nice.

Okay.

I mean, I have finally.

Yeah, I have like Supercell special offers.

And it just goes to the store, Supercell.

Can you zoom in there a little bit?

Sorry, can you zoom in a little bit?

Sure.

Right, so I mean, that's pretty cool.

And but also, some other examples.

I have the actual store, by the way.

Okay.

Oh, yeah, let's see that.

Yeah, let's see.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

In that case, please share.

So, how it works, basically, let's take Supercell as an example here and like maybe go through their setup.

So, what Supercell does is that Supercell runs an ID on all of their games, basically, like a Supercell ID.

Once you zoom in, zoom in.

No, no, no, fine.

Once you connect it with like the ID rewards, like this is the first thing once you get into the store, you need to log into your ID, and then you like

click on the ID card.

It says you this basically on the email, welcome to ID rewards.

We have rewarded you 1000 ID rewards points to get you started.

Earn ID reward points by completing ID rewards missions and making purchases in the supercell store.

You also earn points, you made it that

claim rewards.

So basically, it's a reward point program, like kind of incentivizing you, where if we go to the ID rewards, like I have connected Brawl Stars, don't have Clash of Plans and Clash Royale, heyday and Scottbuster.

So let's say Brawl Stars, if I go here, I can get these

whatever bundles or special cosmetics from the store if I spend the points.

How I get the points?

Either by doing purchases or by actually even completing missions here, like login to brawl stars win 25 those are basically daily quests so they have them on the site but if i go to the actual squad buster or bro star store

brawl stars

you can buy the battle pass right here where it says for 30 instant progress i think this is also in the store in the normal store it doesn't have that but the key part here is that

you have points points numbers within the purchases That's the key part here.

So if I'm buying stuff here on the store instead in the in the normal game or whatever, like from all the skins, even the you know the anchor pricing, this is the anchor pricing because these are the gem packages, the hard currency packages.

It's all scaled within these one thousand, two thousand, I don't know, five thousand

oh, we can have something for free, that's great.

Five thousand uh points.

And if we go to those five thousand points and get to these rewards, for 5,000 points, for instance, I can get legendary stardro

here, as you see here.

So, or each of these skins or whatever.

So, I think in this way,

even the pricing and everything, I would guess, isn't really that much different, whereas the points are driving the extra value here in this setup.

And it's all connected because, again, Supercell has five live games, five big live games where they're pretty much going afterwards.

And your ID, like if I go to my account, yeah, it's connected to all of them, and you just kind of go and claim rewards on each of them.

So, that's their setup that they're running.

And if we go here and we go to actual store, I think

where we are, not here, not here,

where I wanted to go,

yeah,

here.

So, this is how it actually looks if you actually get on the store button.

We can also get moco stuff, by the way.

Yeah, but not everybody has six games, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I didn't

need to have the connected ID thing.

But you see, for instance, Moco, because the game is kinda new and isn't really like that fully fledged as it is, you just have this like 10% more gold if you buy through the store.

Yeah, but the the general idea idea is you go to the web store,

the developer gets more money and uh you get more value.

Yeah, like like it is here.

Like I guess different execution of that value in Supercell cases is this kind of point reward system.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

It's really about how you incentivize your players to go visit your web store.

And I think there's three key ways to it, right?

There's either you give them more for whatever they're purchasing, so that $9.99 purchase is worth more on web than it is on mobile.

You give them a discount, where maybe that $9.99 purchase costs $8.99, the web store, for the

same currency you're getting.

Or the third way is you have some point retention system uh like you just showed there that was actually the same as a game that i used to work on we called them loyalty points but we found that to be more effective where when we a b tested something like discount versus additional currency versus a point system we found the point system to be the best balance of driving that value but also not necessarily being disruptive to the game economy and so that's that's kind of the multiple factors you're trying to balance is not entirely indexing toward just what gets people to click through to the store, but what gets them to click through and maybe purchase on the store, retain on the store, drive that repeat behavior too.

Yeah, I guess the economy point is very, very important because if you drive players to web store and then give them 180,000% value, added value, I mean,

that's not going to help that much.

Yeah, basically, it tanks your revenue.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it tanks revenue.

And then some game economies are just so sensitive, right?

Where even if you give 10% more value for the purchases, well, if all your players get 10% more value, then you cut it out of the baseline and your margin.

Exactly.

That's the key point.

Like, I think people are missing here.

Just want to finish this point of discussion because what Chip said is super important to understand in layman's terms, which basically means companies want to make more money, not companies want to give players more value, because this is not the problem we're trying to solve.

We're trying to move the 30% ransom fee to the company's pocket.

So just saying.

Yeah, I want to ask the big elephant in the room question, right?

Because it's been quite a while now since the ruling, right?

And more and more companies are doing web shops, right?

Chip, how much money right now is not being accounted for in the estimates in mobile games because it's going through web store payments and not being counted in Sensor Tower?

Everybody's crying.

Mobile gaming is dying because revenue is declining.

It's been dying for eight years, but.

It's a great observation.

I think we've become very accustomed to using these data platforms that aggregate data from mobile platforms.

But as you said, Felix, they don't account for web store revenue yet.

And I think they're actively working on solutions to accommodate this.

But in the meantime, there is a gap there.

And I think to understand that gap, we should look at companies who are more forthcoming with that information.

So I look at like a Playtica.

You brought them up earlier, but in their latest quarterly earnings report, they said 25% of their revenue last quarter was through direct-to-consumer channels.

And so that's a quarter of their revenue.

And I can tell you with pretty high confidence, they're not alone in that.

There are other very forward-looking-thinking and forward-looking publishers that are having a quarter, if not more, of their revenue that's coming through this.

The other interesting part to that is that so much of direct-to-consumer is very top-heavy.

We're seeing like some of the biggest publishers in the world are the ones leading the way with direct-to-consumer driving a lot of this.

You mentioned Scopely earlier and Platica here, and other examples where it's these mega publishers are the ones that are driving more there.

And so, I think that does create a pretty significant gap.

I'm not saying it's overall, 25% is missing from these stores.

I do think Platica is on the higher end of what we're seeing with that.

But I do think it's a pretty significant percentage that we're seeing missing there that hopefully we'll find a solution to.

Just to put the numbers in on that, right?

Playtica's revenue last year was 2.67 billion.

So if 25% of that was through web stores, that means that 667 million

of dollars just on Plateka alone is being unaccounted for in these reports, right?

Scopely probably has a web store.

Supercell definitely has a web store.

All these, yeah, they do, right?

We just saw it.

Exactly.

Yeah, there's a lot of revenue not being accounted for.

I would guess that publishers and games that are, as you said, very big, which are also very big on the cross-platform sense, even more incentivized towards this kind of setup.

I'm talking about not only like epic or like Western people, but also people in the East as like Mihoyo, you know, or the Genshin.

Of course.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, as well.

No, I mean, they have.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think they also have that

incentive.

It's time to propose a sadness payment multiplier of 25%.

Any big top-line revenue metrics that we hear in mobile gaming, we will add a sadness multiplier of 25%

on top of that.

Let me tell you how I would take some of that analysis, maybe.

So, for instance, with CensorTower, the install data would not be impacted theoretically, right?

And so, you could still lean pretty heavily on that to get an idea of that.

Same for DAO metrics, MAUM metrics, anything that's more usability-based.

It's really just the purchase data that's impacted.

The volume, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then beyond that, I would then, okay, if I'm looking maybe at some competitive analysis, looking at different companies, I would go out and try to see if I can understand what their direct-to-consumer revenue is.

Like, if I'm looking at Playtink, well, great, they put that in a quarterly report.

Other companies do that.

They might mention it in an earnings call.

I think it was MTG, the Modern Times group, recently talked about their direct-to-consumer revenue percentage.

And I think SciPlay recently cited it in an earnings call of the success they're seeing in direct-to-consumer.

So different companies allude to this in different ways.

So you can get a better idea, maybe on a company-by-company basis, at least, of what that sadness multiplier should be when trying to do that competitive analysis.

But you don't need to disclose it, do you?

Even if you're a public company.

Yeah, but you want to brag about it.

Yeah, of course.

I give you great idea.

Yeah, for sure.

I'm just like making sure that

this important detail is there.

For sure.

Yeah, yeah, there's no obligation.

And I think that's why we still don't see most talk about it.

And there are definitely going to be some big gaps there.

Also, I think there's still some sensitivity around direct-to-consumer, right?

It's specifically around the relationships that publishers cultivate with Apple and Google.

So that's why I think some may be not as forthcoming with it, which I think is totally understandable.

As we still want to see what the long term here looks like.

Again, this Apple ruling was only three months ago.

And so we are still in this nascent phase with that.

So I think just seeing what data is out there, though, when it comes to direct-to-consumer can be really helpful in doing that kind of analysis.

I'm just thinking most probably since the ruling happened, like these numbers are just increasing

heavily, especially in the U.S.

You mean like the trend line?

Yeah, the trend is going down for sure.

yeah yeah yeah well I mean I don't want it's not decreasing yeah I mean yeah but it's like

it's not it's well actually it's funny you say that I don't I don't want this to be the Play Tica podcast but one more data point on them again because they they published this information so it's very interesting when they published their recent quarterly report their figure their percentage of revenue from direct to consumer for q2 of 2025 was actually down it was actually decreasing both quarter over quarter and year over year so you might say, but Chip, we've been talking about this magical steering solution that's growing everything.

How is that down?

And I think this goes back to how many factors go into that number, where I'm not familiar with what's driving that number with them.

It could be something genre-based where they're launching games in different genres and growing in different ways.

It could be country-based where they're growing in different countries.

I don't know exactly why that percentage would shrink.

What I would say is also equally interesting is in that same earnings call where they showed these results, they said, and we're raising our long-term direct-to-consumer revenue percentage goal from 30% to 40%,

meaning they expect over the long term for 40% of their revenue to come from direct-to-consumer channels.

Yeah, but like, sorry, one correction, like, oh, not correction, like explanation there.

You said that it quarter by quarter is down 1.8%, but actually they said 1.3% year over year up.

still.

Maybe it could be, you know, one chic from Saudi Arabia that loves to play play social kissing and happen to move countries.

It could be.

But again, the most important is the target that they said there.

Chip mentioned that 40% is their target now, which is, again, I would say.

Which is huge.

Yeah, it's huge.

It's huge.

It's huge.

I think last time we heard this number being tossed around when we were talking about AFK Journey and some Lilit games.

They're doing like 40%.

That was the hint we got from our Chinese friend.

Yeah, we actually ran a survey just this summer, and we're going to be publishing a report sometime in the coming weeks.

So, this data hasn't been shared yet, but I'll give you a sneak peek of what we'll be doing.

There we go.

So, a couple of data points that really stood out to me because we just got these results earlier this week.

One is

we asked, Are you making use of a web store currently?

And this is over 100 senior gaming people really focused on North America and Europe.

So, we really tried to qualify this survey.

And of those results, 57%

said they have a web store today.

43% said they do not.

So we said, okay, for that 43%,

if you don't have one, are you planning to have a web store?

Are you planning to have it in the next 12 months?

Are you planning to have it at some point in the future?

26%

said, yes, we are planning to develop a web store.

Not only that, 60%

said we plan to have one in the next 12 months.

And so

if you take those two data points together, where

57% have one today.

And of the ones that don't, 60% will have it in the next 12 months.

It's like

this is just the direction things are going.

This is where everyone in the industry is shifting.

And so I think that explains a lot of the explosive growth we've seen.

The one last part I'll add on this

to not undermine the entire survey that we're going to publish here is

if you haven't built one yet, have these recent court rulings influenced your decision?

Have they made you more likely to adopt a a web store?

And again, 96% said yes.

Like these rulings are what's really

not the only thing, but they are driving us, making us more likely to have one.

I really hope you asked the question when you don't have the web shop.

Like why?

What are you waiting for?

What are people allergic to money or like

why is it an Apple shareholder?

I mean it's pretty clear.

I I asked that question.

I asked that question personally when I talked to publishers.

I'm like, why don't you have a web store today?

And I can can tell you, let me tell you what I've heard because this is something that's also changed quite a bit in the last few months.

There's still apprehension about the

possibility of ramifications from Apple and Google, right?

They're still, I want to preserve my relationship with them.

And I'm worried that by driving payments off-platform, they will penalize me.

in some way.

My response is generally like, if you hear of a repercussion, let me know.

Like, I live and breathe this space.

I have heard of nothing.

I'm always checking with our publishers and making sure everything is going smoothly.

I'm looking for others talking about some negative outcome that's come from this, and I have heard of nothing.

So, as long as you're respectful of the policies and understand what they are and complying with them, I don't think there's any reason to fear that.

Honestly, like, what are we afraid of these days if featuring and all these other kind of store organic things died out already?

Like, what can they do?

I mean,

they're a big company, they can do whatever they want.

Of Of course, they can do, you know, they get slapped with like a lawsuit right in front of them afterwards, if you're within the legal terms.

But still, the question is, like, what can they do?

Because most of the time, as I think before, this whole like thing that Chip mentioned, like the repercussions or whatever, was that you don't get featuring, you don't get like visibility, you don't get these organics that the stores were doing.

And like, let me get this straight: like, in the beginning of the stores, like, some company just grew up on organics, period.

But it's not like this is the case these days.

Like, this whole thing philosophy is dead, basically.

So, what can they do?

Or what's the advantage you will be losing these days?

I agree with you.

Fine, if I advocate for that.

Exactly.

Look, here's a featuring Brawl Stars is right there.

Oh, yeah.

I saw their web store.

So, I think the bad taste in the mouth of publishers still is from 2020 when Epic Games drove payments off platform and Fortnite was pulled from the stores of both Apple and Google.

But that's what I think.

Like, declaration of war.

It was.

It was a calculated move.

Like they knew they were going.

I mean, I don't know.

They ran the mockery of their Apple ad in the Fortnite trailers.

Yes.

And I think it is important to recognize the hybrid approach is still critical, right?

At no point would I advocate for driving all of your payments off platform and not transacting anything through mobile.

Like you still need to process some payments through Apple and Google and still a very healthy percentage of your payments through them because there's a lot of

frictionless experience experience there and any number of reasons also

also you yeah also you get uh on google at least like a little bit of rankings based on the purchases and the retention and all of the fun stuff so i mean the algo still takes your payments into consideration

yeah yeah but exactly algo which one like the one that you already trained five years ago and you're figure soft or subway servers or the ones that you starting a new game you still have a new updates to the algorithm from

what the algorithm algorithm brings you, man.

Like, that's the question.

I mean, if you're a small developer, not that much.

If you're a big developer,

if you're offline, no Wi-Fi games,

yeah, it's just the thing.

Okay, if you're offline Wi-Fi, but if you offline no Wi-Fi games, you're doing ad revenue, not purchases.

So, this discussion is not for you.

You push people to go to the website to buy no ads.

But honestly, this doesn't make any sense to me.

And I think because of the, like, from a player perspective, like, payers aren't stupid.

Payers is Excel sheet for offers that they're tracking within within their own communities, with Reddits, Discords.

They specifically know what to buy.

There's guides for how to spend your hard currency and stuff like that.

The moment these people hop on this bandwagon of you go to Webster, you get more value.

This will be like Exodus, basically, if this becomes the common trend, pretty much.

Yeah, yeah,

I think the other shoe to drop with that, though, is a longer-term response from Apple and Google.

Like, right now, their focus has been on the rulings and how they can accommodate those and maybe try to push those back or delay those going into effect, if not in the United States, but in other regions too, like we've seen with the Digital Markets Act and the DMA and the European Union, which still hasn't had a lot of teeth because the compliance from Apple and Google has been very slow and trying to really delay it from cutting into their share of the revenue there.

And so maybe if this ruling does become more long term, become the new normal in the United States and they've exhausted all legal avenues, then we'll see some other response from Apple and Google.

Maybe that comes in the form of a lower payment, lowering that 30% threshold.

Maybe it comes in the form of some other fees.

Maybe there's maybe an install-based fee where they could get revenue that way.

Unity tried that.

I'm just saying, all options are on the table here.

And I think that plays into some of the apprehension that we're hearing from game publishers as well in pursuing this.

So, the first domino to fall was America.

Who's next?

The language there was a little jarring to me.

Like the domino to fall.

It's the resident of America on this pump.

America was the first country to be liberated in the form of payments.

There we go.

Thank you for pandering to my sensibilities.

Yeah.

Sorry, liberates.

Yeah, America was liberated.

There we go.

Who's next for freedom?

I think the next one up, we have this act in Japan that's going into effect in December.

So it's called the Mobile Software Competition Act.

It has a lot of similar language to what we've seen in the United States.

It was actually established over a year ago, and they've said it will go into effect December 18th of this year.

And so that's one I definitely have circled on my calendar because Japan is such a big gaming market.

That's the only one also that I've seen with the set date.

So we know December 18th is the date to watch out for.

The caveat there is other rulings could pop up at different times.

And so we always have to keep our ear to the ground.

I can already imagine the heavy loyalty programs that all those RPGs will be throwing out there in Japan.

It's so

payer-heavy there.

It's going to be smooth sailing.

Yeah, I think it'll be very impactful.

And this one is interesting because in the United States, we've seen the rulings be separated between what's possible on Apple and what's possible on Google.

And we can talk more about the Google ruling a little bit later.

ruling in Japan spans across both platforms.

And they've said this is just our approach to how these platforms can and cannot regulate these apps and their monetization and what that actually looks like in practice.

We'll know as that date gets a little bit closer and what it will truly look like, but it's definitely one to look out for.

Hey, Japan and then hopefully Europe, I guess.

Europe moves slowly.

I know, I know, I know.

But still.

Yeah,

that's my hesitation.

The DMA has a lot of similar language to what we've seen, but it's also left more room for flexibility with how Apple and Google can comply to that.

What's been so impactful about the ruling for Apple in the United States, I think what's really borne out are two factors.

One is the timing of it, and the other is the specificity of it.

So the timing,

it's the only ruling I've seen where it said this is effective immediately.

Like when that ruling dropped, those rules were in effect.

Games could start taking action on them.

Every other ruling has had time to comply.

Even this most recent Google ruling in the United States has said Google has weeks to adapt to this.

It's not months or even years, like we've seen in other countries, but they have time.

So, one, it just instantly went into effect.

But the other was the specificity.

It said Google has to allow off-play, or excuse me, Apple has to allow off-payment platforms, and they can charge no fee for them.

So, in other cases, like with the DMA, they've said Apple has to allow a platform payment.

So, Apple says, cool, we'll do that.

And we're going to charge the fee

makes it not prohibitive, right?

But that literally sounds like lazy legal making, like economic design and not understanding the flow of currency where players are getting a better head of it.

Yeah, I think of it more as like this ruling in the United States really deeply understood the issue and some of the possible loopholes.

For example, they went as deep as to say in the Apple ruling that Apple couldn't use scare screens as we've come to know them.

the screens that pop up and say, hey, you player are going to this other website.

We can't guarantee the safety of your payment information, so you may not want to do this.

Like, that's going to deter so much adoption, right?

In the United States, they said, Okay, Apple can't do that.

They can't use screens like this.

And so, I think that specificity is also what's really set this one apart.

What's going on with the Google ruling then?

Yeah, so the Google ruling, I think the first thing to know is it's not yet in effect.

So, it was established as of August 1st, or actually, it was established late last year.

It was just upheld on August 1st and said it's going to go into effect.

It is more broad than what the Apple ruling was, because the Apple ruling was really focused on steering.

It was really focused on how games could showcase off-payment platforms or payments inside of their mobile games and how they could get players there.

And that's been very impactful.

The Google ruling does that, but it also touches on things like the in-app payment system that Google Play can use.

And it even touches on alternative app stores on Google Play, which is when things start to get really interesting.

So with this ruling, again, this is only in the United States, but I think what's most likely is, this is all a little speculative, again, because it's not in effect yet.

So we don't know exactly what it will look like in practice.

But I think what's most likely is, first, we have steering.

We have steering identical on Android to what we can do on iOS.

That alone is going to be very impactful because we've seen it be impactful on iOS.

So if we could do that on Android too, great.

The entire United States market is unlocked for steering and has that opportunity for growth.

I think we have a good chance to see that by the end of this month.

Again, the date is one that Google is trying to push back.

So I think there can be more delays to this.

But optimistically, this month we'll see steering get unlocked on Android.

That could mean steering in the traditional form to the web store page, or like we were talking about earlier, steering directly into a checkout page for that frictionless experience.

Beyond that, there's some language in there that I actually jotted down that really caught my eye.

There's one line in particular that I'm curious to get your reaction to, actually, which is,

it says, Google Play may not prohibit the use of in-app payment methods other than Google Play billing.

And so the words there that really stand out to me are in-app payment methods.

When we're talking about how we process payments inside the app,

that's the part that's always been protected.

That said, if you want to drive payments through a partner like Fastbring, you have to go off-platform.

You have to go to a payment.

It means you can have your own store there within the app.

Possibly.

Possibly.

I think some of this is open to interpretation, but that's the part that I'm definitely watching for.

And saying, like, if we can have in-app payments through a third party, well, that could be extremely impactful if that's what's within the scope of this rule.

It does.

It does.

I think there's a lot of uncertainties.

I'm not ready to wave the banner on this yet.

I think even if that, even if that is a possibility, I think there would be some fees attached to that, right?

Because you're not leaving the app at that point.

So if you go through a third-party store, Google still takes a cut.

There are a lot of things that still need to get figured out with that.

But I just mentioned that to say that kind of language being in this ruling could be extremely impactful and is a really strong indicator of the direction things are going.

But do I get that?

That if, let's say, Epic runs an Epic store on iOS store,

it will always be the case that it will be under a fee from Apple.

Talking about Google now.

Oh, sorry,

Google the other way around.

Yeah, that part I think is also

TBD.

The language in here around alternative app stores being viable and enforced, like not being prohibited on Google Play is new.

And Epic has said they're going to bring the Epic Game store to Google Play as they will.

That's been their crusade.

And so, yeah, I think it'll be really interesting interesting to see what that looks like, like when they bring it up, how that revenue share works and how that gets adopted onto the Google Play system.

What's the expectation, by the way, with these lawsuits?

Meaning that, like, is there any other one that's like a prominent one having a near like milestone date or something?

Or you follow these?

Or how do we know that

another ruling somewhere there in the distance, like three months further is going to happen and stuff like that?

There's so much talk in so many different countries that, but I don't know of specific dates coming through.

But I also wouldn't be surprised to see rulings come up.

For example, with the IOS ruling in the United States, that was a surprise.

We didn't have April 30th circled on our calendar and said, oh, there's going to be some new ruling.

Let's see what happens on that date.

It was.

We knew that these rulings were being evaluated and appealed, and there was a lot of back and forth there, but we didn't know exactly when that decision would come through.

So when I think about what's happening in other countries, just to give you an idea of some, we've heard Brazil calling for regulations on this and opening up some of the steering policies and citing what's happening in the United States as president.

Spain announced just last month that they were deepening their investigation into the practices from Apple and Google.

We've heard in Korea that they're doing an investigation into some of these things.

And so, it's definitely popping up all over the world.

And so, I think as those proceed, there will just be the drop of the decision.

Okay, we've completed our investigation and here's what we've decided.

And so, in some cases, it will be and these rules go into effect in three months, in six months, in eighteen months, or it could be and these are our decisions and these rules are now in effect immediately.

Short answer,

no other dates circled on my calendar as of yet, but there are a lot of different things I'm watching to to see what comes up and when.

You need to you need to put Google alerts for Apple ruling for every country in the world and you will just get it into their email.

Honestly, it makes a lot of sense for the government to do this because, if I understand correctly, they're basically increasing their tax revenue, whereas more of it stays home within the home turf, especially in countries like Japan, South Korea.

There's more tax revenue for them, basically.

I don't know how the tax implications shake out when it comes to Apple and Google versus the direct-to-consumer store, but I would say it's more popular for consumers, right?

Because they're paying less or getting more for it, right?

So it's more people.

Let's not touch that economy question again.

But what I wanted to say is that, like, imagine you're a big Japanese company and you just increase your margin, meaning you're getting more revenue, which means more taxes, rather than for the

government.

The revenue going somewhere to Ireland or wherever Apple pays their tax haven.

Yeah.

In the end, it's like a positive thing for a government.

I know, yeah, now what you mean.

Yeah, if my company makes more profit,

then I pay more taxes, obviously.

So it makes sense.

Yeah, see?

So

easy

chip one question as well so slush last year i got drunk with a executive from fun plus and i started asking him about the web shops and he was saying that

there's mediation for web shop where basically you mediate multiple payment providers to basically get best rates like What is that?

I was drunk, like I said.

So is that a thing where big companies have multiple payment providers and they just see where they get the best or the lowest rates

yeah I'm happy to discuss your behavior when you've had too many drinks yeah so mediation yeah I think it's it's an interesting end game that's evolving for direct-to-consumer where we see the most sophisticated players in this space say we're going to bring on multiple uh direct-to-consumer partners and mediate the traffic between them in a way that's optimal for our games that can be based on the margin as you alluded to based on the pricing and but there are other factors too right there's when you talk about direct to consumer payments there need to be things considered like payment method coverage where different merchants of record will have different payment method coverage in different regions some might be more successful in the european union some might be in asia some might be in south america and so you can look at where your game is having success and say okay we're going to send the payments in this region to fastbring and send the payments in that region to another merchant you can divvy it up that way and you can combine that with the pricing that you see, which could also vary by region, and say, we'll look at the pricing that's best for our game.

But the other big component that goes into that decision is risk management and looking at the approval rates that are coming through and also any fraudulent activities and who's safeguarding you against that the best.

As we've seen companies evolve, and a few of our gaming publishers do this as well, where we're one of the payment providers that they use.

And so they'll divvy up traffic based on a multitude of factors that makes the most sense for them.

So yeah, I think it is something for games to consider and aspire to, but it's definitely a like in the crawl, walk, run of D to C, that is like sprinting, where it's after you've established your direct-to-consumer presence, you've grown to a healthy degree.

And now you say, okay, we're to this optimization state and we want to allocate that traffic optimally.

I think Chip mentioned that on our previous podcast that some companies are starting to have multiple web shops.

and also

don't forget: 57%

have a web shop, so those 55-7%

can figure out like this optimization.

We need to talk about this

43% of the companies don't have the web shop, guys.

This is this is your time for sure,

and then you can optimize the web shops.

So, Felix is setting to see waterfalls in the future.

Absolutely, I'm seeing

Julia Roberts meme counting with all all all the factors for sure exactly no but that's that's an amazing end game because not everybody's thinking about this that's for sure

yeah yeah and i think geographically is what has been most traditionally the way games like to mediate that traffic so far of the games that are doing it but i could see that becoming more granular in the future too or maybe it is country by country basis maybe you even say we're going to get into this on a payment method by payment method basis that would be much more work for the publisher much more operational complexity, but you could get to the point where you're saying, we're going to send Google Pay in the United States to this provider, and then we'll send Apple Pay to this other provider.

And you could have that degree of control.

That's one of the really cool things about direct to

consumer to me in general is that we're empowering game developers and game publishers to really take this and strategize and optimize in whatever ways they see fit.

You're not just beholden to having these one or two partners that you're distributing and monetizing your game through.

You can really take as much or as little control as you want and have the best outcome for your game.

I mean,

that's amazing.

You have a way it would work, Chip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, thanks.

I mean, we can

end on that?

Like, that was.

Yeah, I mean,

like, yeah.

Is that it?

Too exciting?

Too much?

Kumbaya.

Do you want to plug anything or how people can reach you?

Anything you want to say?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You can find me on LinkedIn, of course, if you want to talk about direct to consumer for Fastbring.

I mean, I mentioned the SpearSafe solution earlier.

You can look for materials that we're going to publish around that.

But if you're curious today, you can go to fastspring.gg, request a demo, and we're happy to talk to you about how you can leverage that.

I alluded to a report we're going to publish, so you can be on the lookout for that.

It's going to have some really interesting data, including what we just talked about, about publishers with web stores and what's driving them to pursue that.

likelihood to pursue in the future.

We'll also dig deep into things like genres of games and how they're

looking at drug to consumer differently.

So I think we'll have some good data for you in there.

And then, yeah, we'll be at Devcom and Gamescom next week.

We'll have boots at both.

So if you happen to be there, please stop by and say hi.

Oh, yeah.

Awesome.

I'm definitely going to share that report afterwards.

Join the Slack channel.

That is going to be absolutely there for sure.

We should talk about it in the future as well.

Thank you very much for coming again.

I think this is really helpful.

And everybody else, please share this amazing podcast with your industry friends.

So motivate them to start with.

Yeah, with a 43%.

We need to share it with a 43%.

43%.

Next time we talk, that's going to be a much smaller percentage.

I hope so.

I definitely hope so.

All right.

Thank you guys.

See you next time.

Cheers.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.