How D2C lets you "take the power back" from app stores | David Stelzer from AppCharge #PGConnects

We are now once again joined by David Stelza from Appcharge. How are you doing today?
I'm doing fantastic. Thank you very much.
Fantastic. Now, we've talked often, you and I, London and and all over the place. I doubt at this point. So, we're not I'm not going to make you do the introduction slug live who you are, but
one of the conversations I've been having a lot with people is about the DTOC market. It's maturing slightly. you know, a couple of years ago it was a nent thing and now we're know a little bit more about it. I understand you're interested in that area as well. So,
of course,
how have you found the market developing for you folks? How has it impacted what you're doing and what promise does it hold at this point 2026?
I think it's one of those things. It's becoming uh a necessity for a lot of companies. So, as things have progressed very well with the Apple and Google lawsuits, with Epic, and we now have some clarity in terms of what can be done, what can't be done. uh and people move now to a lot of offstore

transactions through an MO or a merchant of record. I think it's important to realize that the direct to consumer option that goes along with that is more than just what the MO is. It's more than just payments. It's the ability to really have what DTOC says, this direct to consumer transaction, this relationship that you can create, this access to the information and kind of like a two-way street that didn't exist before or hasn't existed for a very long time. and this means of developers and publishers being able to take that power back for themselves.
Well, since all the changes to regulation from all the way from back to GDPR up to where we are now, there has been this restriction. And the thing with the D2C market means that in order to participate, they have to kind of sign something off and you have to opt in and therefore you are able to now kind of I guess reclaim some data that perhaps you didn't have access to prior which I'm sure is valuable. But there is also this aspect where I mean talking to folks about the community it tends to agenda like do you find that in your experience that that is a truth as well? Of course, the community is uh your main

means of really talking and and and bringing uh them knowledge really about what it is that you're doing. And you want to activate that community so that they're only they're kind of like this living breathing thing that's that's interested in your IP that wants to play your game that's talking about it that's engaging with it and whatnot. And then when you get into DTOC marketing beyond that, you're activating that community further. You're directing them to a place where they can go and interact with the people who are actually making the game. They can get better deals on the things that they want. My hope is that eventually these portals, these web shops, these web stores eventually become more than that, right? They become this this portal for all things that you're interested in for that IP. So, let's say you have a very successful digital game IP that makes its way into linear media. You now have a place to go where you can talk to your audience about that linear media. You can share that with them. You can have physical goods that you sell through there. You can give them additional value or other rewards that they wouldn't otherwise be able to get. Engage with loyalty

programs, etc. All through this portal. That is what I would call the ultimate goal of DTOC. How do you minimize the friction? Because there is this thing where people are happy. They trust the app store. They're inside the app. They're making their inapp payments. and then suddenly it wants to push you outside to this third party place with a whole bunch of branding that might look like the game or if it's not optimized very well doesn't reflect the game and people start to you know hesitate how do you make sure it's a smooth thing
I think that there's different kinds of people who want different kinds of transactions and that's okay right so what we're seeing is in the DTOC market if you can move even like 20 to 25% of your traffic into DTOC you're doing very well and you're saving a good amount of money but there are people who are more interested in just the easy quick transaction of there's a sword for sale, I'm going to go buy that sword, click, they do so in the game. However, you do have people who like to spend a lot of money and are looking for value. And so, a lot of times people who play and need a pack of gems or coins or something for

that, they might be more interested in the offer that's uh being given on a web store, right? And so they they're being trained that they can play on their mobile device, but they can go pay somewhere else if they want the value proposition. But if they do want the quickness, they can still go through the normal means of doing things. And I think at the beginning, all of these things have a certain amount of friction. But as you train the muscle memory that more value is had somewhere else, it almost becomes like it's more friction for them to spend more money than to go and get the value. I think
I've also been talking to folks where and something I hadn't considered myself where if you're pushed to an alternative app store, a direct to consumer store that you've built yourself, you can introduce the the the notion of a car, you can actually have multiple payments. You I'll have this and I'll grab this and I'll grab this item and and that's something which you know baked within the app store system. Basically, you make an inapp purchase or you buy a bundle and that's a different way of cons of of consuming the product as well. Are people taking advantage of that already or
people are taking advantage of that? And I had some interesting meetings while I

was here as well about, you know, could we put alternative versions of payment within the web store? Can we have free cash options? Could we have pay with gems options? Can we do tasks in order to pay for things? And you couldn't do that within the app store. It's something that the developer would have to approve and authorize and do, which they're going to do through their own portal.
And I'm obviously another t topic that people are talking about is rewarded UA. It seems to be the thing that everyone's responding to. Do you think it's an essential thing now? In many ways, the D2C is a sort of a form of rewarded.
I would say to be to be seen still, right? Like it it's definitely a very popular thing right now. Um it depends what kinds of rewards you're giving. There's a way to upset the value proposition. If you give away too much free things up front that people then come and cash in, but then they don't return to actually play and spend money. Do you upset economies or are you actually uh giving the right value proposition for what it is that you're trying to achieve? I think we're still trying to figure those things out and see how they work within the market, but

there's plenty of companies that are here that are doing exactly that. And each of them have a slightly different proposition about how they do it.
What would you say to people who are cautious about the DTOC prospect? Because as quickly as this legislation has been, you know, dreamt up or the the restrictions have been loosened a little bit. Y,
you know that Apple are going to come back this year, they're going to try and like monetize the link. Was it going to try and get that 30% back somehow and everything could change again? You build a store for nothing.
Yeah, I think they're always going to try to get something back. And uh as of January 26th, even Google has uh a new fee that they're going to try to put back into uh to the app store. that is if you're going to link out like direct payment links or anything like that, you'll have to register and then they're going to say what they believe is that reasonable fee according to the court order and then we'll see if that fee is actually reasonable or not. But if you're doing things and you want to do something easy and you want to do something fast and you want to test it without having too much investment, do the payment links now while you still

can. It's like a two or three day integration. Uh you'll see immediate results on it. your users will just push a button make it takes them to the payment link. It looks like they're still within the game and you'll save all that percentage while you still can. And it's a good gateway. They'll say, "Okay, I now understand how this direct to consumer stuff is working. While I'm doing that, I can build a web shop in the background. Uh it will take a little bit longer. I can customize it or I can have a fasttom market one that's more templatized. But the payment links is a great way to get started.
And as far as the rest of the year is concerned, what are you looking forward to in 2026? Are there either things that you guys are planning specifically? Are there stuff that you're planning to launch or announce? Or are there general things that you're looking forward to happening within the system?
I I mean, I'm at a new company now since October. I'm really excited for the growth mode that we're in. I'm really excited as we start to onboard new and bigger customers. Uh, and I look forward to our business continuing to grow and expand into areas that we might not have

thought of in the past. So, as we look at, you know, what could the PC market hold for us? What about consumer apps and other types of things that can benefit from the types of things we're doing with both MO as well as with uh DTOC?