As direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels gain momentum, we spoke with Berkley Egenes, Chief Marketing & Growth Officer at Xsolla, about the opportunities, challenges, and future of DTC in game publishing.

Q: What’s driving the most momentum behind direct-to-consumer strategies right now: economics, data ownership, or platform dependency concerns?

The strongest momentum behind direct-to-consumer strategies today comes less from a single driver and more from a convergence of economics, data ownership, and platform dependency concerns. Rising store fees and user acquisition costs push publishers to seek higher margins. Owning player data enables better monetization and live ops tuning across mobile and PC ecosystems. Meanwhile, reliance on platform holders like console storefronts heightens strategic risk and limits pricing flexibility. Together, these forces make DTC an operational necessity rather than just a channel experiment for modern publishers and studios seeking resilience.

Q: How are web shops changing the relationship between publishers and players compared to traditional platform-based storefronts?

Web shops are reshaping publisher-player relationships by shifting control from platform gatekeepers to direct ecosystems. Compared with other popular storefronts, DTC web shops let publishers capture first-party transaction data, reduce platform fees, and build persistent identity-level profiles. This increases personalization in live ops and pricing, but also makes publishers responsible for trust, payments, and fraud prevention. Players experience tighter loyalty loops, exclusive offers, and fewer platform-wide discounts, but lose some unified discovery. The relationship becomes CRM-driven, less platform-mediated, and more transactional overall in modern live service.

Q: What are the biggest operational or regulatory hurdles publishers face when trying to move beyond app store ecosystems?

The biggest hurdles are a mix of platform policy constraints, payment infrastructure, and regulatory compliance. On the platform side, companies like Apple and Google tightly control external purchase flows, entitlements, and even messaging around web shops, creating friction in linking off-store transactions back into the app experience.

Operationally, publishers must rebuild identity, payments, and entitlement systems from scratch - handling fraud, chargebacks, and cross-platform progression without native storefront support.

Regulatory, they face VAT/sales tax complexity, GDPR and UK GDPR data handling, Strong Customer Authentication in the EU/UK, and age-safety rules such as the UK Age Appropriate Design Code. For live-service games, maintaining compliance while preserving frictionless UX is the core tension.

Q: As DTC channels expand globally, how much do regional regulations impact the scale of success?

Regional regulations are a major limiter on how far DTC web shops can scale globally, even more than technology. In practice, publishers don’t build one unified DTC layer; they build a patchwork of compliant regional stacks.

In Europe, European Union rules like GDPR and VAT obligations shape everything from data capture to pricing display. In the UK, additional constraints, such as the Age Appropriate Design Code, affect tracking and personalization. In the US, regulation is lighter but fragmented across state tax systems. In markets like China, licensing, payment controls, and data localization can effectively block standard DTC models altogether.

So scale exists, but it’s uneven: DTC success is highly correlated with regulatory “freedom zones”, not just product-market fit.

Q: In your view, what separates a “functional” DTC channel from one that truly strengthens community and lifetime value?

A functional DTC channel is basically an efficient storefront: it handles entitlements, reduces platform fees, and captures payment and basic user data. It works, but it’s still transactional.

A DTC channel starts strengthening community and lifetime value when it becomes an identity and engagement layer, not just a checkout page. That means persistent accounts across devices, meaningful progression tied to the publisher ecosystem, and live ops systems that feed back into the product - such as events, drops, and personalization that feels responsive rather than extractive.

The stronger models treat DTC as a social and content hub: creator ecosystems, UGC loops, and community-driven economies. The key divider is whether the channel merely processes transactions or actively deepens social ties, identity, and ongoing participation.

Q: How are alternative payment systems reshaping global accessibility, especially in regions where traditional payment rails or platform fees create barriers?

Alternative payment systems are materially expanding global access by bypassing both weak banking infrastructure and high platform friction, but they also reshape how value flows back to publishers.

In emerging markets, mobile wallets, carrier billing, and local fintech rails reduce dependence on credit cards, which historically blocked large segments of players from participating in digital game economies. In parts of Latin America and Southeast Asia, this has a direct impact on conversion rates, especially for free-to-play titles where small, frequent purchases matter more than large transactions.

From a publisher's standpoint, DTC web shops can now integrate local payment processors and dynamic pricing, avoiding the uniform constraints of platform stores operated by Apple or Google. This improves accessibility but introduces complexity: fragmented reconciliation, higher fraud exposure, and uneven settlement timelines.

In effect, alternative rails are widening the addressable audience while forcing publishers to behave more like global fintech operators than traditional game distributors.

About Xsolla

Xsolla is a global commerce company that builds and provides all the things developers need to launch, grow, and monetize video games. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, the company supports studios of every size, from indie to AAA, with solutions across direct-to-consumer commerce, intelligent payments, entertainment-based IP, and player engagement products. Xsolla helps developers fund, distribute, market, and monetize their games at scale. Trusted by more than 70% of the top 100 highest-grossing games, Xsolla operates as the Merchant of Record across 200+ geographies with access to over 1,000+ local payment methods worldwide. Grounded in a deep belief in the future of gaming, Xsolla is resolute in bringing opportunities together and unlocking growth for creators everywhere.