Driving 25% of mobile game players to a web shop can lead to 8% increase in profitability

Publishers don’t need to bring all their players to their direct-to-consumer web shop to have a substantial impact on profitability, according to Nexus CEO Justin Sacks.

Sacks was speaking at a session during Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki alongside FastSpring CMO David Vogelpohl, entitled ‘Is using a web shop or third-party payment solution worth it’?.

Sacks said that if publishers focus on their ‘VIPs’ and most engaged players and bring them to their web shop, this can lead to a significant increase in profit margins. He claimed that converting 25% of mobile revenue to D2C could lead to as much as an 8% increase in profitability.

He also highlighted other companies that have made a successful transition to D2C platforms. In 2022, Playtika reported that 23.2% of its revenue was driven by off-app store payments.

Sacks highlighted three key areas to be successful with a D2C strategy:

1. Global payments and compliance
2. A player experience-optimised web shop
3. The ability to market outside of your game

Sacks said that due to App Store rules preventing linking out to off-store payments – rules that are different in the EU at present but still apply a fee – publishers need to find other ways to communicate an external store to players.

This means creating a social media presence to engage players. Publishers can also link to parts of their website that aren’t related to purchases. For example, they can link players to an external website to view a leaderboard.

Reducing friction

Sacks said one of the best practices for building a successful web shop is to make the experience familiar to the game. “You want to reduce friction,” he said, adding publishers need to make it as easy as possible for players to go from the app to the store to making a purchase.

“Establishing brand affinity is the biggest thing for me,” said Vogelpohl. “D2C provides an opportunity to decouple that relationship from any particular device”.

The best tools to incentivise players to purchase include:

• Better deals – Discounts / extra content.
• Exclusivity – Unique content you can’t get any other way.
• Passing on savings you make off the platform to the player.
• On platform you lose 30%. On D2C it’ll be a lot less. So you can pass on 10% to 15% additional content/currency to players on your web shop.
• If publishers focus on VIPs, they can make unique bundles based on player activity and previous purchases.