NEW ** Panel: Payment Links vs. Web Stores: What Actually Drives Incremental DTC Revenue?

Heat. Heat. We'll get started here. So, we're going to be talking um about payment links and web stores and what's driving DTC these days incrementally. Uh before we get started, we'll do a quick round of intros here. My name is David Stellzer. I'm the chief strategy officer at Appcharge. Uh former president of Vixola

and former head of the Unreal Engine group over at Epic Games. Uh been here now for about the last eight months and having a wonderful time here.
You're here in Barcelona, too?
Well, at Appcharge, I should say.
I do love Barcelona.
Hi, everyone. I'm Stephen with Deca Games. Uh we helped game uh publishers and developers to look after their older free-to-play titles, the ones that you kind of wish you could do more with uh but you're busier with your newer or bigger projects. Uh Deca takes over or acquires these games and helps them to ensure longevity. We are headquartered in Berlin, Germany, where I where I live, and we are known as the mobile free-to-play division of Embracer Group. I've been in free-to-play publishing for over 16 years. Like most of you guys here, I'm also like a lifelong gamer. So really happy to be here today.
Hello everybody. My name Vicram and uh I I represent Ludia Games. Uh I'm I'm

working at uh Ludia as a senior product manager and uh on D2C and admonetization side of the business and we have a really great IPS that we uh kind of you know brag about all the time. So, uh, we work in partnership with Universal Studios, uh, to be able to, you know, develop and publish those games for them.
Hi folks, me Colia, a VP Europe at Appcharts. I've been in the industry for 20 years, based here exactly to date, a year ago, moved to Barcelona. So, it's a lovely city. Great to be in in this panel and great to share it with you guys. So to get started, um, let's first do a quick baseline of where DTOC sits today. Uh, we're going to assume a little bit that that everybody kind of has gotten familiar with what direct to consumer is over the last couple years, so we don't have to dive as deep into it. But the short of it is it's how do you take that

relationship back with your customer? How do you make more money? And how do you keep more of that money that you make? So let's start with a quick temperature check here. from a product lens, what does DTOC really look like for Ludia right now?
So, uh, D2C for Ludia is not just the the the margin game, but it's also about, uh, you know, having a direct connection with our audience, our players to be able to build a relationship and serve them better.
And Stephen, from a a partnership perspective, what are you seeing in this space? Um, I guess I'd love to also ask the audience before I answer like how many people here are not in the DTOC space or like curious to learn more about it or or how many people here are actually already integrated in the DTOC space. Okay, got it. Okay, cool. So, uh, Deca was really early in the DTOC space. We were the first partner, uh, to

integrate a web shop with Exola way back in the day, pre-COVID. Um, we're also integrated now with Appcharge and that's going super well. Um, and I I would say if you're in the DTOC space, there's never been a better time to get involved because there are so many amazing companies and from a publisher perspective that is great because you guys are fighting each other and that forces you guys to level up and improve your service offerings and your support and so as a publisher we are just getting better and better service, better rates. Um, so if you're not constantly looking at it and refreshing it, uh, I'd say you're missing out.
Ma, obviously we work together, but you know, you got two different perspectives of of individual publishers here. You have a bigger lens, a wider lens across dealing with a lot of different publishers. So, what are you seeing across the publisher landscape that you're working with? Well, I think in terms of T2C, um I think we've reached the place where where it's become the

new norm in in a sense. It's part of like if you're building a company, you're building a successful game. You have to plan for it from day one now. And it's not just an add-on anymore. It's a it's a it's a part of building the product, building the game. But also what's what's really interesting lately I' I've been hearing a lot about like how how [snorts] to utilize AI in terms of serving better offers to people whether it's in-game or outside in DC and I think I think it's a very exciting time to be working in this space because of that and I think for publishers also for companies like app charge we're going to see much faster iteration of of new innovation coming in because of that driven by a lot of lot the AI that's that's uh part of the industry now.
Yeah. And we know there's going to be a lot of iteration. We know that uh that the speed of your technology is going to make a difference. Uh new pieces of how you look at the the stack of what is

direct to consumer will become something important. And we've seen this already. Uh payment links for instance have moved in here pretty fast. We we all knew that web stores was a ne was a way to to interact with the consumer and as the laws started to move around and change you were able to now do these direct payment links where you can just push a pay button to it and uh it's made a big difference in things. So go from you ma and work our way over this way. Um, are are studios and publishers are they treating web shops and and payment links as kind of one overall direct to consumer strategy or are they looking at these in different ways as they they bifurcate them and have to be treated separately?
Yeah, it's like it it really as we're seeing like a lot of lot of especially larger publishers uh have done something in DTOC. There are still companies that haven't done any direct to consumer yet. So, it really depends on that. We sometimes see that in the life cycle

when you're looking at payment links that's like a fast opportunity. It's basically money that's available right now and you can integrate fast. So it's a it's a really good ROI fast to market. So we see a lot of publishers that kind of want to want to want to really like push the gas pedal and move quickly. Payment links works really well. But as a long-term strategy like web store is really where you connect with your players and I think that's uh more and more apparent as the regulations keep fluctuating right so so with Google and Apple they change all the time and a lot of things are still on the air right so how do you build something that you can you can rely on for years to come and I think that's you know web store is really the the place for that and and and uh innovating that and pushing the boundaries there I think is something that's a great long-term strategy for a lot of larger publishers especially.
Thank you.

Uh nice perspective for for us. I think uh it's more of a funnel than than a choice in a player journey. If you if you look from that lens, it's kind of a payment links kind of, you know, get you started, but uh your your real value is provided through web store, which compounds over time, if that makes sense. Yeah.
Um I realize we forgot to shout out Apple and Google. So, everybody here [laughter] um has made a ton of money by working with our partners in the iOS App Store, Google Play Store. We wouldn't be here without them and they've been historically great partners. Now that that's out of the way, um DOC and the explosion of DC would not have happened um if things in those shops have not uh let's say unfolded the way that they did, right? Um compared to when the when

in the early days of mobile discovery is not what it used to be. what you're getting from the these platforms is is um you know doesn't justify the 30% right which is the whole reason why this DTOC industry has now blossomed and has boomed and you know we have regulations now in support of DDC which is an exciting thing so um yeah I feel like as far as web stores and payment links go from a DECA perspective we're not doing any payment links I think um mainly because our perspective is we're working with older titles with very loyal players. And these players want to come back and enjoy their favorite game for as long as possible. And that means, you know, they are happy to go to a web shop because a web shop is the destination which you're creating for them where they can get better value, better offerings. Um, and that's just way more compelling than uh like a quick interaction or activation through payment links. I think that's a good point is um you know what Stephen I

think has illustrated is you you can really know your customer. It's not just about take all the tools and just like regurgitate them out and use them. Know what works for your customer base and figure out what the best strategy is. Um how to figure out that strategy how to figure out the state of regulation where that regulation might move to future strategy. That's where a partner like app charge really comes in to help advise to help work with the customer. And I think that's where a lot of the value comes in these days, uh, for where these different pieces of companies are and how the competition is evolving. Um, with that, I'm going to shift gears real quick. So, we're going to look at, um, you know, how big is this DTOC market right now? How big can it actually get? And DTOC is already representing about 12 billion of the 81.8 billion AP market in games. Um this is according to an upcoming report that we've commissioned at Appcharge uh in conjunction with GDC. This is about 15% of revenue that's coming in. So we're seeing a shift going

over from traditional to direct to consumer revenue of about 15%. Where does this panel think that share goes uh in 3 to 5 years from now? Is this going to stay stagnant? Is it going to go up? Is it going to go down? What does it depend on? Want to start, Stephen, since you got the microphone?
Sure. I mean if let's say like you know regulations stay the way they've been and web shops are you know safe and everything um we are looking to only grow our the percentage of our revenue that comes from DTOC um we think that it's much more compelling to be able to offer things like you know better value better offerings loyalty all the things that you guys are working on for example um that's stuff that we maybe uh wouldn't be able to take the time to build out ourselves and that's certainly things that are not necessarily readily available directly on the platforms, right? So, um I think you're seeing it in a lot of other public companies. Their share of DDC revenue is going up.

Um you know, some of them are low double figures like you're talking about, some are even higher. We're much higher in in some of our games. And our goal is to keep uh that that target moving up over the years. I don't know about three to five years because that's a long time for our industry. But hopefully um yeah, the trend will continue. So I I think uh in 3 to five years I think it also depends on the strategy how you apply to it and your situation uh uh game genre etc etc the the the percentage would differ based on that but uh if done right uh if you you know kind of have a strategy which is in line with your uh live op strategy and you know rolling out offers in in in sync with your in-game events, seasonality and uh and and then bringing uh a different um reasons for player to visit web shop then it it can achieve uh much

higher than what it is right now.
Yeah, I I' like great points guys, great points. Um, I'd like to add to that like a different horizon that lately I've been seeing um larger publishers really interested in testing out subscriptions and um in in direct to consumer sense and that's something that is interesting because for quite a long time like there was a lot of talk in the industry like sub subscriptions in general for games and I can see that that's certainly something where large companies are actually excited to try out and that's something that we'll see in the future and probably gonna increase the margins, right? So, subscription revenue is probably the best revenue you can get, right? So, so that's going to be exciting.
Can I ask a question related to that? So, is there a specific genre? Because you you you mentioned genre earlier and I'm curious to learn more about this. Which genres are more suited or based on the data that you guys are seeing um which genres are are better suited for

sub subscription revenue? Yeah, I think not so much genres, but games that have like battle pass systems, for example, like you you may have players that like a large amount of players that only buy a battle pass, not buy anything else in the game, right? though. So can you transfer those people to be recurring subscribers basically locking in that personal revenue and not having to pay obviously lion share to the platforms while doing that and that's I think is pretty interesting
and I think even within those battle passes and other things um we are seeing the better you can segment your audience right segmentation becomes a big thing here so the more you can segment your audience the more you can make individual offers the more that you can create these better relationships with the customers Um we are seeing in some of the leading studios already that they're hitting 35% in terms of their DTOC revenue. Uh MGM slots hit 60%. Which is pretty crazy. Um and so the question gets asked a lot

like is this realistic for studios to hit these larger numbers? Um I think it is. I think it's just a matter of making the investment but doing it systematically. You don't go all in to go from like 0 to 60%. uh you start to see what's working, you start to build on top of that uh and you slowly make your way. But we're seeing a good average of somewhere between 15 to 30% as a a fairly standard number I would say as to where DTOC is. And we think it's going to grow immensely over the next 3 to 5 years, especially as things stabilize, I would say, uh and this becomes less of a gray area and more of the way that people operate their businesses. So, Mika, again, when a game studio comes to you and says, "Hey, we we want to scale our DTOC, what's the first thing that you would tell them?"
Well, first thing is like it all boils down to what they currently have, right? Like, so and and and that's like three things. It's it's uh payments, the stack, if they currently have payments,

like how does it look like? What are the numbers there? Those really matter, conversion rate, all of that. And then second is monetization like how are they are they offer making these offers showing them to the players are they segmenting are they really like handpicking the players that you know are monetizing the have the highest arpoo in the cohort and showing them the best possible offers. Are they how are they doing that? And then trying to understand from there like where do they want to go as a company like what is their product vision like for instance like are they interested in trying new innovations out like for example subscriptions whatever it may be like where do they want to take their game because I think it kind of needs to go hand inhand with the product destiny and where you're building the game towards them. And Stephen, you when you're dealing with, as you said, a lot of older IP, um, I think there's this notion that, uh, DTOC is really only

working for these new games that are building out these new audiences, how do you advise the older IP, uh, into the web shop space?
Yeah, I'd say it's quite the opposite of what you'd expect, right, David? Yeah. Um, so a lot of the players that are playing our games, actually, most of the games in our portfolio are extremely mature. I would say like averaging close to 10 years in in in the app stores, which is for mobile quite a long time. Some of our games are even older than 10 years. And these gamers are super loyal. They're communitydriven. They they're I would say not casual games. So most of the games are midcore forex or strategy games. And these players that we have that are loyal, they're coming back and playing in the same clans or guilds with their friends and they are just going for the best value. So if they know that Deca is offering a web shop which gives them way better margin or unique offerings um the word is out and everybody goes there right and as long as we don't do anything dumb they'll

keep going there and so it's critical to have a good partner and be able to do things in the correct way and to to learn from you guys for example
and within these mature games that are starting a new strategy of how to gain incremental and additional revenue um can you give kind of an understanding of like what's the smallest percentage that some of yours have moved to DDC and what is the largest at this point?
Um
I think it's important just because people don't see it in
the smallest for sure is single digits but I mean we have over 30 games in our portfolio. So um our largest I think we're in the I want to say at least 40 something% of our revenue. Awesome.
And we we want to raise that percentage higher. So
yeah, our CEO believes like it shouldn't be difficult for large studios to get to 50% of revenue directly in a few years. Sounds like you would agree with that with the trajectory that some of your games are having here. Mika, are you seeing that as well?
Absolutely. And I I I think like there's no real ceiling to that. um regulations as they keep changing and new

innovations that open up the you know things like game discoverability distribution which is all tied to regulations but I I think like even 50% isn't the ultimate ceiling
so I'm going to switch over now to uh payment links versus web stores and I know Stephen we talked like you're not really dealing with the payment links a lot so Vikram I'm going to engage with you a bit more here um so our transaction data shows that about uh 56% of payment link users in the US had never made an external purchase before. It's pretty astounding. Uh they were completely new to DDC and around 25% of that 56% went on to make their first web store purchase after that. So you had an engagement with people who had never done something before. That engagement converted into actual purchases at a pretty high percentage rate. uh does that match with what you're seeing in your business so far at Ludia?

I
I would say it's uh it's aligned with with that approach. Basically, as I said in a earlier question where we are looking at it in terms of funnel where you engage uh players with payment links at very high high uh conversion points in your game. You have to identify those uh specifically. You you got uh you got hooked uh your your players onto payment links to the external payment essentially and uh once they are there uh maybe after few transactions they they will eventually you know switch to web stores and staying there uh where where the value is you know provided better and you know it compounds over time. Yeah. It's a line. And then the other thing that we hear a lot is like, oh, cannibalization. It's still a concern. Like if we do these things, it's going to cannibalize from our other revenue. Um, Mika, are you are you hearing that as a concern and how are you addressing it when you hear it?

Yeah, I mean people ask about it and and usually the simple answer is like payment links, inapp purchases, you know, doesn't emotional purchases and web stores for rational purchases. And usually just simply explaining that like uh people who make games understand those decisions like it's an emotional purchase when you're doing like end of level, get more lives, you just want to keep on playing. And then you have like the web store where you can really truly like as a gamer like minmax your setup like try to get the best value so you can get to a certain goal in the game. And I I I I think everybody kind of gets that because it's in intrinsic to games, you know,
and then the thing that everybody wants from all of this ultimately is upside, right? You want upside, you want predictability, you want a way to engage again with your consumers, know who they are, uh have better data at the end of the day. Um,

so question comes up about what does it take to really capture this kind of upside like what do we need to be doing uh as companies in order to do that and where does app charge fit into that. So the the thing comes up a lot about do you build versus buy this type of technology. Um comes up in every DTC conversation for each of you. Um how have you looked at that decision as you've started to mature as companies and what has led you to not build your own internal systems and work with a third party partner like an app charge uh that this is all we do. I think for us is a real straightforward answer. Uh we are a game building, game developing company. We [snorts] specialize in that and let uh specialized uh people handle that for us.
Yeah. So, uh at Tekk, we have several different studios. So, when this first

came up, one of our internal studios decided to work with uh one of your competitors, and that's fine. Uh we have another studio in Canada called the thinking ape. They had a different approach. They decided to build out themselves. So um and I think through that they also learned what they can what they can do well and what you guys can do well and and and do differently. And so our approach at DECA is let's work with whoever has the most compelling service or offerings and support. Um that's why we're working with you guys among others and and um we will continue to utilize you know these learnings and best practices. Um I want to kind of like speak to your other point about like cannibalization. Um I think there is cannibalization and and this the overall strategy because we're in such a mature mobile industry. The initial thought is like okay like web stores you get better margin that's the reason to do it. But are you just getting margin or are you actually looking to grow that pie? And I think

that's a an important question that you need to ask. And I think the exciting thing about working with partners like you guys is you got you're offering more than just the better margins. It's, you know, additional features, loyalty, subscriptions, bespoke, uh, custo, you know, tailored solutions. And these are things that I think, yeah, you could at the end of the day, you could go home and build it yourself, but that is a distraction from for most of you guys here that are game developers and publishers. It makes sense to probably focus on doing what you do best and then let your partners also work on doing what they do best as well. So, if you think about it from that perspective, it makes sense to kind of align with guys that know really know it so that you're not trying to recreate the wheel, right? Yeah. And I don't think that the ultimate goal here is is cannibalization. And I think
in in this in in this part of uh day and time in the industry, we're always hearing about margin and and better

better net revenues and things like that. But as you're being able to use these different flows and funnels, I think what we're trying to help companies do is get more customers into the funnel, get those customers seeing more offers that are out there, making more first purchases, and making more purchases of a higher value. So you create higher LTV players ultimately at the end of the day. um you will have churn that happens during that process, but if you're bringing in the better quality players who stay longer with better offers and start to spend more money, it's not really cannibalizing at the end of the day. It's actually growing that LTV, I think. Um where do we see studios overestimating what DTOC will do to for them? Uh and do they underestimate it? I mean go back to the point of what you were saying like it's not a magic bullet, right?
That's right. Yeah. I mean I think as the industry continues to mature and evolve there's always going to I mean

savvy developers and publishers are always going to try to figure out where you can achieve better margin. That's part of it. Um, so DDC is part of that equation, but so are new platforms, um, innovation, coming out with new, um, you know, new games, new products, um, exploring ways to bring something new and compelling to your players, right? And so I think DTOC is going to continue to evolve. I I'm not an expert in that area, so I can't really read where that's going to go. I'm going to leave that to you guys. But I I would say like if there's anybody in the room now that is not looking at DTOC or not [snorts] looking at let's say ASO or whatever these are all things that are not no longer like set it and forget it things you have to either look at them constantly or work with a partner that is looking at them constantly like an app chart. So um you have to shift your mindset that this is a mature industry

and you can't keep doing things in a static way. You have to continue to grow as the industry continues to evolve.
Vikram, uh, next question for you. There's a view that the right split is to own the playerfacing layer, your offers, your live ops, your economy, and then partner on the infrastructure underneath, payments, compliance, fraud. Is that the way that you guys see it or how do you break it down from the Ludio perspective? Yeah. So for us it's uh it's it's better that if we do not indulge ourselves into this uh diversions of building infrastructure and you know looking at the uh merchant of record being a merchant of record or uh solving uh customers uh refund queries or etc. rather than uh that we would love to focus our uh you know team on u building new features for the for our players or new content beautiful uh dinosaurs for

for example right so we we would love to focus on that instead of you know building infrastructure yeah
I I got one last question here because we're getting short on time um and I'll leave this up to everybody can have an answer here what's the one uh strategic mistake you see studios make most often when they're trying to scale DTOC. I I'll start with that on my end from what I've seen over the years and it it's become a an evolution I would say of DTOC which is great to see that it's happening but uh initially people thought you just threw up a web shop continue to do your regular marketing in UA and everything would kind of just work and it's evolved to separate teams that are there specifically to market that funnel take care of those offers make sure that your DTOC funnel is working differently than your main marketing funnel. So, what kinds of things are you guys seeing?

I can I can add to that and kind of goes to the build it or build it versus buy it thing as well. Like we're we're in a post AI situation in the entire world and game industry right now. So, I think the question of who's building it becomes less relevant and what becomes more relevant is who you're building it with. um who understands your players, who has a vantage point that he's a little bit farther horizon than you as a game publisher because you're focusing on specific games like Vitam saying you guys you have a focus. Every company has a focus that they're really good at, but it also forces them to narrow their focus and and I think it's key is to find a partner who has a vantage point that's higher and and and they can see farther and and I think that's that's that's how you should choose a partner for direct consumer.

From from my standpoint, I think if newer studio are trying to look into this uh you know domain for for their titles, I would say there is no silver bullet. I mean you you got to try it know your audience better like uh Seon is focusing on existing players, older matured audience and sticking with the web store, right? So you got to know your audience better and uh design your uh players D2C journey based on that.
Yes, very similar to both of your guys or actually all of your points. Um I think it's very naive to just set up a web shop and then say, "Okay, I'm good. I've got the better margin." um the majority of your your future kind of depends on how you look after your live games and your your players and this is an ongoing everchanging relationship that you know will evolve over time, right? And so I think it's really really

important to um always have an eye to how do we take the best possible care of our players because these are the ones that are going to be coming back day after day to generate revenue for my game. And so if you look at all the numbers, the majority of the revenue that comes from the app stores or off the in DC comes from existing live games. That's one of the reasons why we focus on existing live games, games that are more than a couple years old. Um so uh don't forget about that. I mean like all the other things are really exciting and and you know like sexy, but like focus on keeping your players happy. That's what I would say. And I would say like there's what what you're missing in DOC if you're just focusing on those things are all the and you're you hit on it are all the unsexy things people forget about the most basic things that your checkout which is a customer experience that generally the your partner is going to control instead of the game. Having the fastest best

checkout which I think we do at Appcharge uh helps make that experience great. the unsexy things of dealing with fraud and complaints so that you can make more dinosaurs, right? Like that's the things that that's the things that you want your your M and your DTOC partner to really handle. And then what's what's happening in the market? How do we help build you better loyalty? How do we help build you better offers, advise you on what's working within live ops, what's working for other companies for all the things that we're seeing across the spectrum. Uh and so, you know, don't don't hesitate to lean on your partner. We're here to make you more successful. Uh because that's what a partnership is really about in my opinion. So in wrapping up um you know we came in asking what drives incremental DTOC revenue and I think it's been a really productive open conversation. I want to thank the panelists here. DTOC is already a 12 billion market. The gap between the studios winning and the rest is only going to continue to get wider. We hope that more of you are willing to participate in this space. Uh so again

thank you for your time today. Thank panelists and everybody. Have a great time here at PGC in Barcelona.
Questions. You've got a little bit.
Yeah, sure. [applause]
It's my fault you're late. Don't you It's nice. Do you have any questions on D2C? I've got I've got one. So, if you've got Put your hand up. Oh, look. There you go.
Mike, get your mic on, Simon. Come on. You're a professional. You should be having There you go. Do you see the DTOC space as giving you giving publishers and developers more opportunity to do things that are innovative perhaps outside of the mix of things that they would do uh through traditional channels? And if so, what would that what might that look like?
Was that to anyone in particular?
Yeah, I would say absolutely. Um especially as you as uh David astutely said the key as a publisher or developer is you want to own that customer relationship and basically that is super critical for the longevity of of your business. So if you're able to understand their behavior, give them offerings which are best suited to their

behavior and and and you know hopefully get them to continue to convert and come back and engage with whatever you're doing. loyalty. Um, these are all things that are much easier outside of the the app store. So, you're 100% correct. And I I would add to that, and I'm going to make a a not so subtle pitch for what we do, but a big piece of of of working with a company like ours is you're working with a company that is uh made by people who have made games, made by people who have done the monetization work as opposed to some of the other companies that are kind of a fintech company with the games layer strapped on. So, a lot of what we're doing is taking the innovations from things that have been built within the games industry that we're seeing work for our partners and then we're getting ahead of that by trying to think about what's going to be needed in the future. What are those things that you need that you don't even know you need yet, right? That's what a good partner is doing to be forward looking and helping you to succeed in the future. And I think

that's where Appcharge comes in and is uh extremely successful.
All right, any more? Oh, and we got one more question here. at the front. This young lad man in the back.
Poor man at the front. Okay. [laughter] [panting and sighs]
Hey, thanks for a great panel. Um, have anyone of you heard seen evidence of algorithms, the App Store, Google Play algorithms disfavoring a rising DTOC percentage for some casual games? So that and and we can anchor that further on like certain games have a have a disproportionate high volume of organic players because of because of the algorithm and featuring working the way that it does today in in this day and age. Obviously you won't see this in in in games that are very residing very much on on on paid traffic. Um, it's

it's a thing that some industry colleagues and I have been we believe we're seeing in certain titles, but we're unsure. I I'll give it to Stephen in just a second, and I'm not sure that it fully answers that, but what Stephen was talking about earlier where the that evaluation of what types of games are best for what type of direct to consumer activity. So, I think it's unfair to just say that an algorithm maybe disfavors all DTOC, but I think an algorithm can be helpful in in in other factors and helping you determine what's right for your particular type of game.
Yeah, I can only share from our uh what we see at Deca. Um, we don't have many casual games. Um, I'm not sure there's actually like a full correlation, but our organics have gone down, but I think organics have gone down across the board for a lot of publishers, and I'm not 100% sure it's related to what we're talking about. So, it's really
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think you're right on that.

Okay. [music] Was there one more question? There was one more question. Sorry, I can't. Young gentleman at the back looks familiar.
Thank you guys. Uh, first of all, I'm super interested about this this data because that's a serious antirust violation. [laughter] So, if you have a solid evidence, let's talk about it. Would love to hear from you guys. There is a little bit of fear that um D2C might hurt the the user centric approach that the the the funnel of D2C might hurt on the long term. I know that on the short term like any new feature it might be hard to adjust in the beginning but then after the slump there is we know obviously I'm biased but we know how effective it is and I want to hear from your side like how it looks on the long term like for uh for from the user perspective on D2C does it create more loyalty or you're seeing a drop uh uh and in and retention like especially to you Stephen like would

love to hear from you.
Thanks uh thanks for the question. Um, I'm not sure it how to measure if it's created more loyalty, but I can say that, um, you know, our MO at DECA is longevity. So, our players are are playing the games for our our hope is that they can play our games for at least another 10 years from when we, uh, start with them. And so far, we've been very very successful. So, I and with DOC integrated for with you guys. And, uh, so I don't see it as having a negative impact at all. Uh, I can't see it, to be fair, I can't seeing ha how it makes it more loyal, but we can't, maybe we're not at that granular level yet, but for sure people are uh players are used to this behavior now and they're coming back and they want to see what we can offer them. So, I I'd say it's a net positive. [music] Heat. Heat.