Picking the Right Web Shop for Your Mobile Game

While publishing your game via a major platform will ideally bring unrivaled exposure, there is a catch. And that catch is the cut. Across the likes of the App Store, Google Play, Steam, and the PlayStation Network, platform holders tend to take a 30% cut of your revenue in exchange for the services they provide.

The arrival of the EU's Digital Markets Act in March 2024 liberated devs and publishers to explore direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategies, after the Epic vs Apple ruling's initial easing of such limitations on studios. D2C strategies are an alternative way to engage and monetize your top-spending players, providing new engagement mechanisms and touchpoints alongside sales that are out of reach of the 30% app store fees.

As such, web shops are becoming increasingly popular, with almost every major mobile publisher establishing or upgrading one in 2023 - in-part in anticipation of the Digital Markets Act.

At the same time, web games are making a return, for myriad reasons - from offering a path to untapped audiences, to giving your existing audience new ways to play. But whether you're working on a mobile, PC, or web game, the challenge here is how to maximize the potential of D2C. Just as with backends and game engines, it is possible to build your own web shop. But going proprietary can be hard, requiring you to take engineers and developers away from their work on your games, and handle complex payments, taxes and regulations.

Choose Your Web Shop Provider

Working with a payment platform provider that understands games and web shop building, meanwhile, lets you focus on making your game great while retaining more of your revenues. They might charge a service fee, or take around a 5% share - but that's a considerably better deal than 30%.

Here, then, we've compared the approaches of a range of providers that can build you the web shop you need:

01 - AppCharge

Putting web shop provision front-and-center of its offering, the renowned AppCharge provides a no-code web shop builder focused on ease of use, with options to gamify the store itself. Supporting over 500 payment options, AppCharge also serves up plenty of monetization, compliance and fraud protection support, and an insights dashboard to inform your revenue strategies.

02 - Xsolla

As one of the bigger fish in the gaming payments market, Xsolla brings scale, supporting over 700 payment methods, compliance and tax handling, robust fraud protection, and 19 years providing such services. Xsolla also asserts a 10-to-16% average revenue increase for partners, and a broad sweep of monetization tools. Their Instant Web Shop builder isn't Xsolla's prime focus, but lets you build a performing D2C store fast. Their cut tends to be around 5%.

03 - Aghanim

The game-focused Aghanim promises the capacity to deliver a 200% increase in net revenue via web-based monetization for mobile titles. As well as providing a no-code web shop builder via its Game Hub Builder, and a spread of payment and monetization features, Aghanim also provides features to motivate not just player engagement, but also that of content creators.

04 - Sanlo

Firmly centered on providing plug-and-play D2C gaming web shops, Sanlo brings a range of monetization and engagement features, including segmented offers, bundles, and rewards programs. Distinctly, Sanlo couples its web shop offering with game funding, providing up to $1m in growth focused capital to successful applicants.

05 - Stash

Beyond Stash's charismatic presentation and subversive tone - which includes self-identifying as an 'anti-platform' - the payments outfit is committed to a D2C future where the dominance and 'control' of major platforms ends. It provides a dev-first web shop platform as well as a white-label game launcher builder. Stash also promises absolute transparency, and rather than connecting you with many hundreds of payment providers, picks select providers that meet a strict criteria.

06 - Coda Payments

Coda Payments serves up a tremendous breadth of services, from supporting over 300 payment options and offering global tax compliance, to providing custom commerce and monetization solutions. Its web shop offering is particularly distinct, in that it lets developers sell games, IAP, and in-game currencies on its own Codashop marketplace. Codashop is used by the likes of GTA, Valorant, Roblox, as well as smaller devs, and both Spotify and Tinder.

The DIY Approach

While most studios will plump for a web shop provider, others are flying solo. Playsome, which uses Metaplay as its backend of choice, has created a hub for its Friends and Dragons title on a dedicated website, with its own browser version and also shop to sell gems. Now, we don't recommend choosing 'build' over 'buy' when it comes to your backend, but it can be the way to go in the D2C space!

After Picking Your Web Shop Provider: Integration and Next Steps

Once you've chosen your champion you will, of course, have to connect that store with your game. Some of that will come via the various APIs, SDKs, and other tools provided by the options above. But you'll also want to make that web shop part of your games' wider ecosystems, so the likes of events, LiveOps, game economies, gameplay customization, community communication, compliance, QA, updates, and more all sing in harmony.

Metaplay is the perfect backend to make sure your web shop - and everything else about your game - maximizes its success. Our full suite of customizable and extensible tools ships as source code, catering to every stage of production of an online game's growth from the first line of code, right through to LiveOps and player support.

Want to try Metaplay yourself, and explore and evaluate what we offer at zero cost? Then head to portal.metaplay.dev, and see what we can do for you.

Web Shops for Mobile Games FAQ

What is a web shop for mobile games?

A web shop is a direct-to-consumer (D2C) storefront that allows players to purchase in-game items, currencies, and content outside of the traditional app store ecosystem. This bypasses the typical 30% platform fee, letting developers retain significantly more revenue.

How much do web shop providers charge compared to app stores?

Most web shop providers charge around 5% of revenue, compared to the 30% cut taken by major platforms like the App Store and Google Play. This can result in substantially higher net revenue for game studios.

Is it better to build or buy a web shop solution?

For most studios, buying a web shop solution from a specialized provider is the better choice, as it avoids diverting engineering resources from game development. However, studios with specific needs or existing web infrastructure may benefit from a custom-built approach, as demonstrated by Playsome's DIY solution.

How does the EU Digital Markets Act affect web shop strategies?

The EU's Digital Markets Act, which arrived in March 2024, liberated developers to pursue direct-to-consumer strategies by reducing the control major platforms have over distribution and payments. This has made web shops a viable and increasingly popular revenue channel for mobile game studios.