What's behind the Xsolla rebrand? | Berkley Egenes from Xsolla #PGConnects

I am now joined by Berkeley Eglesque from Exola. How are you doing today, sir?
Doing great. It's a It's always good to be here in London. First of the year, first event. We kick things off right here. Right here in Chile. We're okay. We're avoiding the rain right now. So, we're in a good spot.
Yeah, this is this what classifies as good weather for January in London. So, you picked a good spot. You can probably actually Yeah, you can literally see in the background of the shot your booth which is one of the more impressive ones thrown up here today complete with new colors, new brandings. This feels like a new a new chapter for Exola. What's going on with the company at the minute?
It is. It's a new brand that we launched in December around the uh in LA around the game awards time. So, it's about building and being forward future thinking and building all the things for the video game industry to launch, grow, and win. So, what does that mean? It's we're no longer, you know, we've never just been a payments company, but it's

how do you there's so many components, there's so many tools, there's so many systems that are built around the the industry to make games successful. It's really about building an ecosystem about building and bringing everybody together in a collaborative world, but using the tools, the systems, the services that we offer to help games out because no game is the same. Everybody has unique issues, unique challenges, unique opportunities, whether it's monetization, reaching a new geography, or they want to, you know, take their mobile game and monetize it online through a web shop. How do you go do about that? And there's multiple components that go into that. And it's really creating all those opportunities and making them available for everyone to go and enjoy and to have access to to build a successful video game business. And you can't do that with just one service. Well, when I spoke to you folks last year, uh you were it we touched upon the idea that originally you'd started out as this monetization platform. That was the idea and you

were, you know, looking to expand and this appears to be the the result of that. I mean, you're still doing the monetization stuff. I notic that you guys, you've got the Mercando PJO thing just launched in Uruguay, like the new the big payment wallet they've got over there. So, you're still expanding all of that, but
what are these new channels that you're really focusing on? Like, what are what's is it distribution? Is it like you know what what's the bit you're most excited about?
Sure. We're very excited about what we're here to showcase and all the opportunities for mobile dates. The lit litigation and regulation that has completely changed everything since we were here last year.
Yeah.
So what has changed in United States has kind of been the the Kickstarter to bring that walled garden down that's extended to Europe. Now Japan has opened up between Apple and Google and what's the possibilities are now unlimitless to go direct to consumer. It was a very exciting time. So the rules and policies changed last year. Now how do you implement that and how do you expand and build all the things on top of that to

make what's possible a reality? And you're seeing more games. We've worked with thousands of mobile games that have launched in their web shop to be able to provide that unique opportunity, that unique program, that unique promotion uh to their game the players, their gamers around the world to be able to and to be able to grow their business um to expand beyond what was just in the mobile device. Now you go a mobile browser. Now you can do it online and make that payment in that overall ecosystem. Now, as we're looking, you talk about Uruguay, you talk about Japan, you talk about Middle East, Africa, places that we continue to invest, then to expand from a payments. So, if you can be a game developer here in the UK, you want to launch and you find this following, you're a mobile game, you find this following in Africa because it just it's an influencer grabbed it and kickstarted it off. Now you can monetize that game in Africa because we enable that for you from a payment system, a payment method.

Whereas operating as your merchant record, we're able to open that up. We are going to continue to invest in local geographies to be hyper localized to be able to provide that opportunity for game developers, no matter where they're located from a development to be able to reach players around the world. Well, the direct to consumer thing, which I've been talking to a lot of people about, it does seem to in addition to the benefits of financially to be able to cut out the kind of middleman, there's also this community aspect that seems to sit where it allows people to congregate in a place that is not only just it's a shop, sure, like an art store is, but also it can be tied much more easily to forums, to chat rooms, to places where people can gather, then that can potentially lead to retention and that sort of thing. Do do you see that happening in your experience?
Oh, no, no doubt. It's all about building that community around your game. And it's more than just, all right, you got it, we capture and we're playing, move on. It's where's the additional value? Where's the different opportunities? You find people in your community on your Discord channels, on your different meetups, on social medias, your Reddit, subreddits. Be able

to reach out to folks like that going into it and offer them a unique opportunity like, "Hey, you're my top 50 players that are engaged in our Discord channel. Could you offer them up a unique code unique opportunity to go engage come in you get for this week only a FOMO offer but doing it being part of the community was being able to provide then they're able to go into the game level up their experience then everybody else is like whoa whoa whoa where did that shield come from how did you get all those gems all of a sudden because you know I was playing with you last week and you didn't have all that stuff it's like oh I'm part of the Discord community so you build that community aspect up and what's going on. So, we're seeing a monetization opportunity that's coming out of the Discords, the Reddits, the different communities, YouTube channels, uh influencers that are being able to like they're picking up the game and playing it within. It's not just the traditional put a referral code out there. Build an engagement experience within that overall ecosystem for your game. You can monetize from any different direction,

the social media channels, the Discords, the communities, what's going on, and then do it online and bring an added experience into it and then keep more of the more of the revenue.
And a big part of what you do obviously is historically been about monetization, but it's compliance. It's basically the idea is that you'll take care of it so the developer doesn't have to worry about it. And in a landscape that changed as fast as it does, like you say, the regulations have changed over here, it's handy to have someone in that corner. There will also likely be changes again this year. Like I can see Apple already working out how they can try and push back against this. So that's going to require a different kind of of like roll out a strategy I suppose. How can people like anticipate these kinds of changes? What should people be doing to prepare against this stuff to make sure that they not only are compliant but remain compliant?
Remain compliant. Work with us. Short answer. We have a slew of teams number of people that are doing this every morning. We all wake up. you open up your your phone in the latest news and you look at it with one eye because there's like stuff's changing all the

time. It could be policy, it could be um taxation, it could be different things. As a game developer, you don't have the time and the resources to go do that. That's what we handle. We handle that gnarly behind the scenes complexity what's going on. The rules changes, government has a different policy changes coming out. There's platform changes that's going on. It's tough to manage if you're a developer unless you have thousands and hundreds of thousands of people and you have a huge legal team to go figure that out. You don't have the time, the bandwidth to go deal with that. You're about creating an amazing experience, an amazing game. Go focus on that. Let us handle that complexity and what's going on and we maintain you that you're in compliance. So, as your merchant of record, that's our responsibility to handle that on behalf of the game developer. It's not sexy. It's not glamorous, but it's important. It's an important component of your game and your business. We are not creating hobbies anymore. We're creating

businesses and helping them to be successful, but by providing all those things that are possible, make that possible to be successful.
And when you're talking to developers and they're working with you and asking for your, you know, assistance and services, what's the biggest point of friction that they report? What's the thing that, you know, in in the year 2026? What are people struggling with the most if you're a developer trying to make a game work and it's UA or it's retention or it's like legal compliance with monetization laws and tax and what's what's the biggest kind of sticking point for most people?
I think the sticking point is when it's not necessarily they figured out the how and like the why and all this stuff is when now like don't wait. There there's a lot of people that have been kind of gunshy or nervous and like hey am I going to get kicked off here? Am I going to get banned here? like what's the situation? It's like start small, try it. Go to a couple different geographies. Launch the web shop in Europe and do it in South America and do it North America. Okay, try it. Now you learn some lessons going into it. Take it to Southeast Asia, an example. Take

it to Africa. Take it to the Middle East. Go try different things. Start early. Execute often. Learn. Double down when you're successful. Pull back when we like, "Hey, that didn't really work out." but rely on a partner like us that has the reach, has the the history, has the experience that goes into it. We're not a fly by night company. We've been around for 20 years. That's part why we did the reborn. And you do it. We're the 20 year anniversary. Instead of us celebrating the 20 years, we're going to celebrate our partners. We're going to celebrate where we've been. new color schemes, new belief systems that was going into it that anchors into our core mission statement of helping everyone to go enjoy the game for providing that opportunity for everyone no matter where you are. It could be a garage game developer, three three people in a garage building stuff or a behemoth AAA game that has hundreds of people, hundreds of thousands of people around the world. We want to treat everybody

the same. Treat everybody with the level of opportunity to do that and give that instinctual opportunity to go advance and to go grow your game and go to countries, go open up opportunities for them. And that's what it's all about. And we're excited about what's coming in 2026. [music]