Mobile
In-game purchases
Monetization
Boost revenue with our incentive program
July 29, 2025•6 min
In April 2025, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Apple violated a prior court order by continuing to limit developers' ability to inform users about outside payment options. This landmark decision marks the latest chapter in the long-running legal battle between Epic Games and Apple, and it has delivered a clear message: the traditional app store model is no longer untouchable. What began as a courtroom standoff has turned into a structural shift across the mobile gaming landscape.
The implications for developers are enormous. For over a decade, Apple and Google have locked mobile game creators into their platforms, subjecting developers to 30% transaction fees, rigid app update cycles, and limited access to user data. Now, the walls are cracking. Developers can legally link from within their games to external websites, including web shops that bypass platform fees entirely. With this legal door now open, new models of monetization are gaining traction fast.
The ruling isn't just a legal victory. It's a business opportunity.
Xsolla Web Shop offers a powerful solution to boost your mobile game’s revenue beyond marketplace platforms. Part of today’s growing direct-to-consumer trend, web shops are dedicated, game-branded online stores that allow you to sell in-game items, currencies, and account top-ups directly to your players.
Unlike standard top-up platforms that offer resources for various games, a web shop keeps the player relationship and experience firmly in your hands. You control the entire transaction and avoid giving up valuable player data platforms might leverage to redirect your customers to competitors’ stores.
Building a successful web shop in the video game industry goes beyond having a basic online store. Xsolla has launched more than 500 web shops for mobile games. Approximately 40 are included in the top 100 grossing mobile games worldwide. We are mobile game commerce experts and know the challenges of crafting engaging experiences for mobile and web platforms beyond attracting new players.
Offerwalls aren’t new, but in 2025, they’re reemerging as highly relevant. With platform barriers falling, developers can integrate offerwalls that reward users for completing actions, like watching ads, downloading apps, or completing surveys, in exchange for in-game currency or premium items.
Done right, offerwalls don’t just pad advertising revenue — they significantly expand the sales funnel. Users who may never spend real money in a game now have another path to unlock value, creating a more inclusive and profitable ecosystem.
Data from Xsolla and other industry players paints a clear picture of the upside. Games that implement offerwalls typically see a 30–40% increase in ad revenue and a 3–5% boost in overall revenue. Users who engage with offerwalls play more often — 1.6 times more frequent sessions — and are significantly more loyal. On days 7, 14, and 30, offerwall users retain at rates 7 times higher than their peers. By day 60 and 90, retention is still 5 times higher. And perhaps most important: offerwall users are 10 to 14 times more likely to convert into paying customers.
That translates directly to longer lifecycles, higher lifetime value (LTV), and deeper engagement, especially in free-to-play environments where traditional conversion rates remain stubbornly low.
The program provides developers with access to a fully branded Web Shop, which you can now link to from within the game without fear of violating platform policies. These shops are white-labeled and designed to blend seamlessly with your brand. No app update is required. You can launch and start driving traffic right away, keeping 100% of the revenue after processing fees.
In addition, Xsolla helps fund the launch through Offerwall marketing incentives, based on your game’s revenue potential. That means you can start monetizing users immediately.
With an Xsolla Incentive Program integration, you can surface personalized offers tailored to user behavior, deliver time-limited bundles, and reward engagement with premium content. The result is a dynamic monetization funnel that’s far more flexible — and profitable — than relying on the traditional app store pipeline.
Behind the scenes, Xsolla also provides the technology stack and compliance backbone. With support for over 1,000 payment methods worldwide, you can reach users globally, in their local currencies, with full fraud prevention and tax compliance built in. You also gain access to detailed analytics, giving you full ownership of player data, an asset that has long been denied to developers under the app store model.
Developers regain control: margin, monetization, and flexibility
For mobile game developers, the ability to offer direct payments outside app stores is more than symbolic. It restores a long-lost ability to define pricing, control branding, access customer data, and keep more revenue. With app stores historically claiming up to 30% of all in-app purchases, even modest gains in margin can mean millions for successful titles. More importantly, developers now have the tools and the legal green light to explore alternative monetization strategies that reach users in new ways, especially those who never convert through traditional in-app purchases. One such strategy that’s rapidly gaining attention in the wake of these changes is direct-to-consumer (D2C) monetization, especially via web shops and offerwalls.Web shops and offerwalls: Seizing the D2C opportunity
Xsolla Web Shop offers a powerful solution to boost your mobile game’s revenue beyond marketplace platforms. Part of today’s growing direct-to-consumer trend, web shops are dedicated, game-branded online stores that allow you to sell in-game items, currencies, and account top-ups directly to your players.
Unlike standard top-up platforms that offer resources for various games, a web shop keeps the player relationship and experience firmly in your hands. You control the entire transaction and avoid giving up valuable player data platforms might leverage to redirect your customers to competitors’ stores.
Building a successful web shop in the video game industry goes beyond having a basic online store. Xsolla has launched more than 500 web shops for mobile games. Approximately 40 are included in the top 100 grossing mobile games worldwide. We are mobile game commerce experts and know the challenges of crafting engaging experiences for mobile and web platforms beyond attracting new players.
Offerwalls aren’t new, but in 2025, they’re reemerging as highly relevant. With platform barriers falling, developers can integrate offerwalls that reward users for completing actions, like watching ads, downloading apps, or completing surveys, in exchange for in-game currency or premium items.
Done right, offerwalls don’t just pad advertising revenue — they significantly expand the sales funnel. Users who may never spend real money in a game now have another path to unlock value, creating a more inclusive and profitable ecosystem.
Data from Xsolla and other industry players paints a clear picture of the upside. Games that implement offerwalls typically see a 30–40% increase in ad revenue and a 3–5% boost in overall revenue. Users who engage with offerwalls play more often — 1.6 times more frequent sessions — and are significantly more loyal. On days 7, 14, and 30, offerwall users retain at rates 7 times higher than their peers. By day 60 and 90, retention is still 5 times higher. And perhaps most important: offerwall users are 10 to 14 times more likely to convert into paying customers.
That translates directly to longer lifecycles, higher lifetime value (LTV), and deeper engagement, especially in free-to-play environments where traditional conversion rates remain stubbornly low.
Enter Xsolla Incentive Program
Yes, you can receive a free User Acquisition (UA) budget as a boost for your advertisement budget to acquire new users and monetize non-payers. As developers move to reclaim control of their business models, Xsolla is positioned as a strategic enabler. Our Incentive Program isn’t just timely — we explicitly designed it to meet the post-antitrust moment. If you want to monetize more users, bypass app store fees, and own your data and customer relationships, Xsolla provides the infrastructure and even some of the funding in the form of up-front advertisement budgets to make it happen.
The program provides developers with access to a fully branded Web Shop, which you can now link to from within the game without fear of violating platform policies. These shops are white-labeled and designed to blend seamlessly with your brand. No app update is required. You can launch and start driving traffic right away, keeping 100% of the revenue after processing fees.
In addition, Xsolla helps fund the launch through Offerwall marketing incentives, based on your game’s revenue potential. That means you can start monetizing users immediately.
With an Xsolla Incentive Program integration, you can surface personalized offers tailored to user behavior, deliver time-limited bundles, and reward engagement with premium content. The result is a dynamic monetization funnel that’s far more flexible — and profitable — than relying on the traditional app store pipeline.
Behind the scenes, Xsolla also provides the technology stack and compliance backbone. With support for over 1,000 payment methods worldwide, you can reach users globally, in their local currencies, with full fraud prevention and tax compliance built in. You also gain access to detailed analytics, giving you full ownership of player data, an asset that has long been denied to developers under the app store model.
Why this matters now
The shift we’re witnessing in mobile gaming is not incremental — it’s foundational. Legacy monetization models no longer trap developers in ways that benefit platforms more than creators. For the first time in years, developers can choose how they earn, how they reach their audience, and how they grow. Antitrust rulings have given developers the legal freedom to move. Xsolla’s program removes the technical and financial barriers. Combined, they create a rare window of opportunity to launch a branded direct-to-consumer channel, start monetizing non-paying users instantly, and take control of your gaming business. With no upfront development cost and the ability to integrate without app updates, the risk is virtually non-existent, and the upside — higher LTV, deeper retention, and direct ownership of your players — is significant. Welcome to the direction the mobile game market is heading! In 2025, developers who move first will set the pace. Learn more at xsolla.com/incentive-program. Ready to start earning with zero risk? Talk with our experts about your game monetization needs.Featured articles
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