Panel: D2C for Mobile – THE Do’s and Don’ts and Everything in Between.

Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] But the fun with Exola does not stop there. Uh we have another panel that is going to be hosted by Sam and there his panelists are going to be talking about the uh D2C uh basics the dos and don'ts of D2C. So I would like to welcome Sam and his wonderful panelists to the stage

please. So hello everyone thanks for coming out to our panel. Um you guys have all your mics right thanks. Great. So thanks for coming out. We're going to talk about uh D TOC, the dos and don'ts, and everything in between. I'm going to introduce two of our panelists right now. They're going to give a little background on themselves and then talk about where uh their strategy is heading in regards to DTOC. So, Stephen Lee, I'll start with you. Introduction. Okay. Hi everyone. I'm Steven Lee. I'm head of partnerships at Deca Games. We are the free-to-play publishing division of the Embracer Group. So we focus on helping developers and publishers to look after their older existing live titles as they uh slowly decline over age. Uh we help them to operate profitably for as long as possible so that the players can enjoy their favorite games for as long as possible. Uh before I joined Deca, I was uh head of publishing at a publisher called Six Waves uh which was originally

doing Facebook games in the social gaming era way back in the day. Uh we are also publishing uh mobile games in Asia. Uh Six Waves is now part of Stillfront. They're also around. And uh like most of you, I'm also kind of a lifelong gamer as well. So very happy to be here. And then real quick, like what have you thought about like DOC? And we we'll get into the basics. No, not really. Thought about TOC at all actually. Uh yes, of course. I I think right now we're going through the same process that everyone here is going through, trying to stay on top of the latest news, which we're going to get into, trying to figure out what we should do, talk to people in the space, and try to figure out what's the best course of action for for us as a publisher. Cool. A Back, Chief Business Officer at TiltingPoint. I joined the tilting point eight years ago and uh back then it was a team in New York of 35 people and it grew to be 350 in a few years. So it was

a great run and we're a publisher. We call it mobile first because the DNA is always mobile but we have a lot of games that migrated to the web to uh Steam and even some on console. Um, we uh I I'll go to the D2C directly. Yeah. Uh, we were I think early adopters with you guys. Pretty early. Pretty early. I think Scopi was Scopi was the first. I think we were the I thought we were the first. Oh, of course you were the first. You actually were the first. Yeah, you were with Deca or Yeah, they they were doing it way before. Okay. So, uh it still was early. Um and uh I think that uh it's a it's a great momentum, great conversation to have because a lot of things are happening and we always as a publisher we want to be at the front of it because we have a lot of genres, a lot of games that we uh either make or publish and we have a lot of developers that we talk with on a daily basis. So

we want to know always what's the latest and what's the best things we can use from insights and good partners as well. Yeah. And uh I'm Sam Gaglani. I'm the EVP of global business development at Exola. I've been at the company 13 years in the games industry since 2003. Uh previous life was film. Don't hold that against me. Um, but uh I'm super excited to talk to you guys today because we are just now in the post guideline changes of what happened a few weeks ago. There's a lot of fluidity that's happening. Um, I think earlier this week, Apple uh asked for an appeal and the judge declined to hear the appeal for now and she also said that the guidelines could stay in place. Um, and I'm doing this right now kind of to set context for what where this could potentially go. So, if the judge denies their appeal, Apple's last course of

action is to write a letter to the Supreme Court of the United States. And if the Supreme Court declines to hear that, what you see now will probably stay in place. If the Supreme Court decides to hear the case, now we're talking US politics and who knows what will happen. But that's kind of the context that we're in right now. Um, I want to talk about like the fallout like you know based on those guidelines that dropped. What was your first instinct? Um, I'll start with you guys Stephen and Deca because you'd already been sort of doing it kind of like what what was the reaction for you guys? Yeah, I think this is um to be honest my personal opinion this is a long time coming. Uh there's a reason why people have always been kind of hey, you know, hammering the platforms a little bit like why are we paying this type of fee? What's going on? We don't we're not getting what we used to get. And you know, before we get any further, I want to be very clear like none of us would have jobs if not for Apple or Google Play. They're great

partners. They're, you know, they're very instrumental in our success. But that being said, there's a lot of stuff that needs to be improved. And I think these legal proceedings and this news is a function of that because people are have started to realize look there's so many other ways to do business especially we're in a mature uh mobile markets are are really critical right so if we're able to achieve margins in a better way um please allow us to do that and have the freedom to do that so well it's not just margins it's actually getting to know your user a lot better as well because Apple kind of took that away. Yeah, exactly. So, I think for us it's, you know, maybe not the nail in the coffin, but, you know, another step in the right direction. I think we're all kind of seeing the the potential that's out there, which is why we're really happy and excited to be talking about it and, you know, coming here to talk to you guys to see what you're up to, comparing notes and and also seeing what might be working best for the future. Yeah. So look, it definitely feels like a part of a process. Yeah. And I think

that's probably the milestone that is the most until now at least the most meaningful one. But I think it's only going to continue. I'm uh usually I'm optimistic and I think that there's no way back. It's just going to the cracks are going to to get larger and larger. Um I would say that for us what changed mainly is that before that because we we have very good relationship with the platforms obviously as a publisher we were very much working on actuals and trying to be very cautious. We want to be compliant. We didn't want to do anything that breaks any any policy or any any rule. But once that happened, it's basically saying, "Hey, us, let's be as aggressive as possible. Let's find the best way to to get the message out to to our consumers that they can get sometimes more value if they go outside the store in a very seamless way. That that's kind of the challenge that we we

are going like how to make it very seamless and accessible, but at the end of the day give our consumers more value." Yeah. So I think that brings us to the do's and don'ts of what you should be doing right now versus what you shouldn't be doing. And I'm going to ask the audience like if if there are any developers or studios here who is currently you know post guidelines steering users right now to uh a direct to consumer store or maybe even you know displaying buy buttons and if there's no developers and publishers that's okay but raise your hand. Is there anyone? One. Yes. Two. Great. So, I think we got to talk about like what what you can do and what you can't do. Um, what we know and what we're seeing immediately in the marketplace is uh companies are definitely displaying a banner ad in a store and redirecting to a direct to consumer storefront. Um, that's something we saw probably like day two um from big partners like Niantic started doing it for PGO. Um, what we

have not seen or we're slowly starting to see are the buy buttons. Um, and that's kind of where I wanted to like start the conversation off. Ye, each company's culture is different. So, I know one company's going to be more risk averse uh versus well, another company's more risk tolerant. Stephen, like what what's kind of your c culture over there? We're we're very riskaverse. Um, yeah, our business model is very different. So, we're we're very focused on taking care of in a lot of cases very very old mobile games. So some of them more than 10 years old um early early early mobile hits. So for us the name of the game is not to break anything, not to piss off our our players, that kind of thing. But that being said, there is tremendous value that can come from DDC. So we're trying very carefully to test things and explain to them. Um and one of the re one of the ways that we're able to do that is because we have a very close uh direct dialogue with our our our core players. Yeah, especially

the whales that have been with us for years and years. We can explain to them what's going on and be very transparent. And the ones that are willing to give it a shot will give us a shot. It's never perfect. We've made mistakes before. We've run into hurdles with Apple iOS approval, that kind of thing. Um, but luckily they, you know, we've earned the trust of our players so that okay, maybe this one didn't work out, but they're willing to try and give us very, very honest feedback. So that informs how we can provide a better experience for them in the future. So as you're So it sounds like what you're doing is the safer route which is displaying something in app redirecting to a more a store place. Are there any sort of things you could share with the audience like tactics that work that you've seen? I'm assuming value added stuff or Oh yeah, for sure. I mean all of the things that you guys have been reading about, you know, like discounts, exclusive items, you know, things that you kind of need to get out of there to do. And the objective is to show them that, oh, actually, I can get something really interesting. It could

be low hanging fruit for us and not really require a lot of integration work or or creating anything new. Um, and just seeing testing the waters and seeing if it works. And so far, it's worked really well for us. Our ambition is to grow the percentage of our revenue that comes off platform. Uh we want to continue to do that. It's you know well into double double digit uh double digits right now and it's moving up. The trend is looking good. So so the buy button thing would you ever go there? I wouldn't I wouldn't rule it out. I I think what would be really helpful is for example you guys or some of some of your competitors who are also here um can continue what you've been doing which is sharing with the market and saying hey these guys here's some ideas or here's some of what our partners have tried already and they're seeing these kinds of results right someone trustworthy or another established player in the industry has validated that these tactics work for sure we're we're willing to give it a shot as well fair enough how are you guys approaching it So look, we're in it for 3 four years

I think. Yeah. The first stage was implementation. So we basically have in our portfolio now more than 20 games. So it was to select which games we think are much more appropriate for web shop than others. So I think that's the first stage. It's like in our case when it's mobile first, it would be okay games that are probably more prone to be PC games as well. Mhm. uh games with strong communities and core users we think are a much better fit. The genre is really based. Yeah. More strategy games and we have RPG strategy games. Um and uh and I think that uh the implementation is just the start. So if I would give one advice uh you know we have games out of the seven let's say that we just did the green check and put them on the web show. Yeah. Not good enough. No. uh the games that we really invested in that we did a real live ops operation like a

real process a real uh effort to get engaged with the users show them the value by the way we also tried besides just show showing them more uh more value more content or discount we also did a thing we're sending them to free offers oh you are and then actually trying to convert on the web shop to make them people that understand how to buy on the web Um so so the idea is when we look at those six seven games is like okay which ones the conversion is better which ones actually drive a real up like upside in revenue and profit against the mobile version and let's double down let's optimize. Got it. Now to your question about buy button definitely in because Yeah. Because I think that what we're doing now is phase one. It's like linkouts. Mhm. Okay. But I'm still driving players to a different universe. Yeah. Like the real uh desire is that

they're not even out. Okay. If I can create an experience that it's in app, the player doesn't even understand it. He goes to another place and is buying directly there. Y that's the that's the perfect solution. Ultimate scenario. But is that initial user experience is going to see two buy buttons, right? Is that going to make them think this is a weird experience? But but I can give them a choice. Look, we're we're all in early stages, right? I can give them a choice and if I can give them that choice while understanding the value in the other choice. I think that that it's it's the best way forward. It it's almost like Spotify is doing it for a long time. You can correct, you know, you can pay through the Spotify system, you can do it through iOS and the user chooses. Yeah. They have the they have the freedom to do what they want. Um what what we have been hearing from some of our partners is they're doing a hybrid

model. So they're doing like 80% to a direct linkout, 20% to the buy button. They're taking that data, they're looking at that data, they're looking at conversion, they're looking at repeat conversion on the buy button because what they noticed was they weren't seeing it as high versus a shop because the shop was where the loyalty and the reward part piece lives and there they could incentivize users to continually come back. I'm trying to think of how that's going to happen in a buy button world or if you've even thought about it yet. um open for I mean it sounds like you're saying everything should be AB tested, right? Everything should be AB tested. Everything in in our caution is the key. Look, I I mean we we definitely have caution and we're definitely conservative in not breaking anything that works well. Okay, this is very important. We're not dealing with players that we're giving them something new. We're dealing with players that already understand how to buy on Apple and they they come to the

game on a daily basis or weekly basis. Yeah. So the worst thing we can do is create friction, right? So so I think AB testing is also for that reason to make sure that what we're doing is clear enough. Yeah. And it's not breaking current cycles of current player experience and what they're looking for. The other big question we get from developers is how is this going to affect organic discovery featuring in the app store to date? Have you seen anything from Apple in your games that would steer knocking on wood? To date, no. But I mean this is one of the reasons why we're pretty riskaverse is because you know even though organics are not what they used to be and and the app store is not discovery is not what it used to be you know they're still the platform that you're the primary platforms that your games are are hosted on can be found on. So, um, you know, you're kind of subject to their whims, right? So, they could

turn off organics or they could mess with ASO and, you know, or just make your life harder in some ways and but you just don't know. Yeah. So, I think our goal is to hey, you know what, like they I'm let's not, you know, try to pretend. I think the platforms also understand the reasons why this is happening. And I think they recognize that as business owners, we have commercial interests and we're trying to figure out the best thing for our business and they can appreciate that. So we just need to do that and figure out how to do that in a way that's not upsetting, right? Yeah. Because there's still, like you said earlier, there's still a strong it's still a strong marketplace. There is discovery that is to be had there. And without the marketplace, you can't get the app. So there's still value. Um, and anything you want to share? No, we didn't see something. I mean definitely not on the clear path. Um but I I would take it to the positive side. I would say that part of it is to maintain and nurture and

invest in the relationship with Apple and Google in parallel. Yeah. So just as an example, we had a conversation with Google about web shops two weeks ago, you know, and helping them to understand what was going on, what was going on, what we're doing, what we're planning to do. So, I think that as long as we're transparent with them and uh and we're trying to find what bothers them, what doesn't bother them, I think what pushes their buttons. Exactly. Maybe the buy button, but that's the that's really the I think the the best course of action is to really have such good relationship with them that it's not we're not doing anything in secret, you know. Okay. So, I want to talk about user acquisition. We talked about this earlier. It's does this now mess with the UA math of like CPIs and CPAs? Like how are you going to approach it or curious to see how you guys No. No. Business as usual. I honestly Yeah. business as usual. I mean our business

is actually on the total opposite end as AI's business. They're very very heavily driven in UA UA funding. We are riskaverse as you know and our titles have already been scaled years ago. So I think I'll let lay back and let you comment on this one. Look, two things. One is definitely if I have a result and this is real numbers in uh let's say Star Trek that I got 155 15% uh more net revenue and 5% more profit because I'm using a web shop, right? in general like for the whole title then of course my UA is going to be more efficient. Yeah. Because I extended the margin right however the second point that I would make and we're still in early stages but I think the I see the whole market moving there I want now to understand how can I do UA web that drives players directly to the web show

but obviously the right players. Yeah. Right. capturing. So it will be probably a segment that is most likely to get there. Um we for example hired someone from Innoame. That's right. You told me that. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a PC web native. You know, they know how to do it. It's not as easy as to do it for mobile, but uh I think that's the also the direction. Okay. So I want to get back to tactics. I'm curious. Are you guys doing inapp messaging direct to the user with a direct call to action to the store? Inapp message? No, not yet. Um, and I think the main reason for that is it's not necessary uh for us for most of our games. Um, because they've been they've been exposed to the store for a while that and we have direct communication channels with them that don't where it doesn't need to be in your face within the app. So, um, it's very clear to most of our whales that this is an option. Okay. Yeah. And how are you incentivizing them to come back? Is

there a loyalty or reward program in play for some games? Yes, there is. It is. Okay. And I'm assuming you guys are doing everything. Yeah. But but look, part of it is when you say return, it's it's a big it's a big uh point because if you're bringing people to the web shop and you succeeded in educating them to buy there and understand it, you want them to return Yeah. and and have it as a habit. And that requires constant live ops, right? Yeah. It's not uh it's not going to be a one-time messaging thing. Got it. And as far as loyalty, are you thinking expanding loyalty now or now that you're able to do buy buttons, will you Yeah, I think for any publisher, I think there's value in creating brand loyalty and trust in in in your brand. So, absolutely. If you are planning on if you have more than one game in your portfolio and you want to build that brand equity with your players. Yeah, it's a really great idea to do that. Yeah, I agree. I think one thing that happened when the guidelines changed is

someone in our company said, "Oh god, no one's going we're not we no one's going to need a web store anymore. They're just going to do buy buttons." And I was like, "No, actually, I think they're going to live in tandem together." Because the value of a web store is you actually get to know your player. They're living in a different part of the universe. They're getting, you know, loyalty, reward points. There's things that you can do in there that you can't do in the app. So, I think the business is still the business case where WebTop is still there. Going back to the buy button, I think it's something you would surface for specific types of gameplay behavior, like you're playing the game and the level I lost. I need to instantly buy something quickly. That I could see happening over and over and over again. Um I'm I'm assuming that's how you're approaching it. Yeah. Look, before before the panel, I spoke to Ben. Oh, yeah. Ben is our web shop guy. Yeah. You know, while I go and uh travel to conferences is actually doing the real job uh on the ground. So, um you know, I

asked him like what would be your thinking or insight about this exact thing that you're mentioning like why do you need a web shop? Yeah. if you could do it seamless in the app and and one of the things that he advised from his experience is that don't create only a store. If you can create a media hub, yeah, it's a hub. Can it turn to be much more than just a place to to buy or even more than rewards like make it a place where it's interesting to go. It's like a whole experience for a game. Yeah. that is more more advanced or more comprehensive than just a mobile. You nailed it on the head. I think I think early on a lot of people were doing topup shops and it was like I I guess webshop 1.0 and now webshop 2.0 is not it's more than a hub. It needs to have some sort more than a a top up. It needs to be a hub where you're offering some sort of incentive for them to come back. And I'll give one example. I'm not

going to say the name of the publisher. I'm not going to say the name of the competitor. Um, they released their shop two years ago. It has no live op mechanics. It's a massive game. They've shifted 10% of their users and they should be at 30 to 40%. And it's because they're not offering any new offers, no reward, no loyalty. And for a long time, they were happy with 10%. Of course, the guidelines have changed and senior leadership at the company is now turning the screws on them and they're now realizing they need to offer that. But I think out of the box, a 10% shift for a basic shop is normal. But if you want to get to 40, 50, 60, sometimes 80%, it's a retraining or a behavioral rethinking of what a shop does versus what the app does. Sorry. Have you without naming names, have you seen someone get to 80%. Yes. Really? Yes. Wow. Core game 12 years old

like deal hunters all mostly whales and dolphin or mini mini whales. So that's super impressive. Yeah. So what's interesting is they're they they are now their the argument internally at that company is what about that 20%. Will we ever get them to move even through a buy button or some crazy offer? And the feeling is they don't think they'll get them to leave because people are so those that 20% is so ingrained to spend on the phone. That's just the way it is. Yeah. So, and we're getting out of Yikes. So, we have two minutes left. I want to talk about the one mistake you should not make. If you were going to leave this audience with something when we are moving into this new world, what's the one mistake? I mean, I would say there's two. One is one is don't ignore this at all. I mean, you're leaving money on the table. I mean, that that goes without saying, otherwise you guys wouldn't be here. Um, I think the other thing that's really exciting is that this is a golden opportunity to uh improve everything.

So, you know, Exola is the been really generous host. There's also some of your competitors that are also here. Shout out to Appcharge and everybody else. Um, but you know, rising tide lifts all boats, right? and it's forcing everybody to improve their service offerings, um what they can do to support their partners. And that's great news for developers and publishers. So, my advice would be to talk to everybody, find out what's doing what, get different perspectives on the best way to handle your DTOC strategy because, you know, the strategy that we're talking about might not be ideal for you guys, and maybe there's another provider that might be have a great idea that would convert super well for your game. So, um, there's never been a better time to talk to a provider to get into this game and and and to get good results. And it's one not it's not a one-sizefits-all uh solution. There's room for everybody. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's game genre. It's how long the audience has been

playing the game. There's so many different factors that come into play when you want to launch a shop or if you think you should even launch a shop. Um, and Aussie, I don't want I want you to give your opinion here. So I would say I I mean it's similar. I would say don't be passive. So I'll give you example that is not directly from webshops but something that we just figured out recently. This is a good point. Yeah. When I say don't be passive, don't wait for Apple and Google to tell you what's what's new and what they did because of legal challenges because they're not happy to do it. Okay. There's fine print. there are a lot of changes that they are forced to do in the US in the EU that they're not excited to do but they need to do right one example is payments so we found out few months ago that there is this uh Apple program that a lot of developers are not aware of and some of them are aware of and not understanding that they're leaving money on the table he he

basically with a switch of a button signing signing an amendment you can switch in all the iOS EU revenue from 30% to 20%. By, you know, totally legit. Now, there is a, of course, they have the fine print and exceptions. The only exceptions is games that have more than 1 million what they call first installs in the last year. But even with those games that you might have maybe one in your portfolio, it still make the whole thing affordable. So this is something we discovered for us. It was $1 million profit without doing anything. Just by knowing it exists, signing it. That's it. I hope you got a bonus. So my point is don't miss those opportunities and talk to Apple and Google because they need to be upfront and and they will share it with you when you ask about it. Yeah. Well guys,

thanks for your time. I wanted to open it up to questions if anyone had questions. We have a few minutes left. Anyone go for Yeah. Does anyone have any questions? We've got quite we've got about six minutes left. Oh, you raised your hand. Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Yeah, over here. Yeah. Thank you for the for the chat. Um, we know about the US. Would you see anything unfolding in any other geo? Oh, yeah. We didn't talk about the EU, did we? So, do you want to talk about the I would predict I would predict that it will follow up. Yeah. So, we know Apple got fined half a billion euros. Um I I heard they're getting that reduced. They then pushed out new guidelines which they said were going to follow what the EU Commission said. It didn't really follow anything. The EU Commission has said they're going to find them again. Um I my prediction is end of Q4 or Q1 2026 it should mirror what you're seeing in the US. Um so

that'll give you the EU that'll give you the US. It won't give you Canada or LATAM or other parts of the world but that I think will be a big gamecher for a lot of developers right now because if EU Google happens US Google's going to follow soon because that's kind of what has we we've seen uh the the trail happening. The reticence that I've seen from some of the developers of not wanting to do a buy button is because they would have to have separate builds. It's like having to monitor one US iOS, one EU Android. I It's just too much for midsize companies to really like think about. Once you see both happening, 2026, Q1, Q2, that's where I think we're going to see another like wave of people really taking this a lot more seriously. Hope that Cool. Anyone else got any questions? Got another five minutes

before the next session. Yeah, we still got a little bit of time. So, you know, if you have any more more stuff to discuss. Yeah, we like questions. Yeah. Well, I have a question. Um, what about subscriptions? Like offering a premium subscription where it's it drives a tremendous amount of value or do you think it's not even worth doing? So, the subscription model is I guess what I'm asking. I think it really depends on on the game and the value that you're providing with that subscription. I think increasingly gamers are more accustomed to this mechanic and if they really like the game, they're willing to pay for it especially for the right with the right motivations. So yeah, it's I would say it's worth considering. I saw it less in our games, but uh we have another uh part of our business where we finance user acquisition. Yeah. So already 5 years ago, we saw for example uh apps for kids. Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. And it's not even but I'm actually talking about

begin like Homer. And the subscription model was very very intuitive for people to go and do on the web because I think the behavior you're right you know of like I'm doing subscriptions to music apps to things like that on the web makes a lot of sense and they already 5 years ago had a lot of the traffic goes directly to the web and people getting more value by doing subscription though. Cool. Um, I think that's it unless anyone has any other questions. Yeah, we still got like what three three minutes there's one there's probably time for one more question if anyone has any questions. Would I got one more? Would you ever launch a game just for D TOC? not even put it on the app store like just go straight D TOC or does the Apple iOS discovery mechanism just prove to be too powerful now we're talking about sideloading I think not I as of today I wouldn't uh

consider that um there's just too much value there's still a lot of value in the platforms you're not going to be able to get you know a a grandma that's playing Candy Crush to sideloadad a game, it's just not going to happen. Unless you fly out and hand her a iPad. Yeah. I I mean, if you have the capacity, it makes sense to get your game in front of your players through as many different touch points as possible. So, for me, it wouldn't make sense to take the games off of the platforms. Yeah, same. Let King or Supercell prove it. Prove it first and then we'll follow. Cool. All right. I think I'm good. You think you're good? Okay, we can we can move on if if no one else has any questions from the audience. Yeah, I think you pretty much covered everything. So, can we give these guys a round of applause, please? Thanks, guys. Thanks for hearing us out. Good, Stephen. Thank you. Yeah.

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