Sanlo, a fintech startup that helps gaming companies manage their finances, announced on Wednesday the launch of the closed beta of its webshop tool, offering select game developers and studios a plug-in play solution that works with their existing tech stack works. Gaming companies can join the waiting list starting today.
With Google and Apple charging a 30% fee for in-app purchases (IAPs), it’s harder than ever for small and medium-sized gaming companies to run profitable businesses. Gaming giant Epic has complained for years about Apple’s revenue cuts and accused the company of being predatory toward smaller companies.
As a result, many mobile game developers are no longer relying on app stores for monetization and are instead turning to external web stores, a growing trend in gaming where companies open stores for a much lower fee (around 4-10%) can operate their own websites. . It is also assumed that web shops increase sales because players buy directly from the gaming company, while app stores pocket a portion of the sales. According to Sanlo, developers can even earn up to 25% additional revenue with a web shop.
“A workshop is one of those super tactical moves that has actually shown that you can generate revenue from it,” Olya Caliujnaia, co-founder and CEO of Sanlo, told TechCrunch. “The reason for this is that it is usually the most dedicated and loyal players who visit the webshop and receive special offers that allow them to get better at the game.”
Photo credit: Sanlo
Sanlo’s new webshop tool provides game developers with a range of promotional mechanisms such as exclusive digital items, bundle packages, discounted offers and loyalty programs to encourage more players to try the game. Developers can also access player data to monitor profiles and purchasing activity and target individual users with attractive offers.
Sanlo said companies can test and set prices “without price caps.” Earnings from webshop sales are deposited into the developer’s account once a week.
One downside to webstores is that Apple and Google don’t allow mobile games to promote them in the app. As a solution to this problem, Sanlo offers marketing tools such as: B. In-game prompts to promote the web shop, sending emails to returning visitors and tracking ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) attribution.
Sanlo has added an unknown number of gaming companies to its webshop platform, including Fusebox Games, the developer of mobile titles inspired by the Love Island IP.
“The biggest appeal for me was the plug-and-play nature of the Sanlo tool and the convenient service they provide,” Terry Lee, COO at Fusebox, told us. “We are a small company that doesn’t have the internal resources to cover all the bases when it comes to supporting an entirely new technical capability.”
Sanlo plans to officially introduce the new product to all developers this summer.
Caliujnaia and William Liu (CTO) founded Sanlo in 2020. The company’s team touts previous experience at Sony PlayStation, Electronic Arts, Visa, Facebook, Capital One, Earnest, SigFig and others.
To date, the company has raised a total of $13.5 million and is backed by Initial Capital, Portage Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital, London Venture Partners, Index Ventures and Konvoy.
Webstore solutions have been around for years, from more established companies like Xsolla to newer providers like Appcharge. Popular games that use web stores include Clash of Clans, Marvel Strike Force, Game of Thrones: Conquest and Star Trek Fleet Command.