Development
Xsolla launches Game Biz Institute to teach the business side of games
August 27, 2026•3 min
Every year, thousands of aspiring developers learn how to build games. They study engines, pipelines, narrative design, and production at universities and bootcamps around the world. But almost none of them are taught how to actually run a game as a business. That gap, between making a good game and building a durable company around it, is the problem Xsolla is trying to solve with its newly launched editorial platform, Game Biz Institute (GBI).
GBI will also house original research, including a joint study with Newzoo on direct-to-player distribution in PC gaming, as well as dedicated research into gamer behavior across Asia.
A new home for the business side of games
Announced on August 27, 2026, GBI brings together named industry veterans, independent researchers, and Xsolla's own experts to unpack the commercial mechanics of the games industry: direct-to-player distribution, payments, monetization, user acquisition, and player retention. Rather than another dashboard of benchmarks, the platform is positioned as a place where practitioners share what they've actually learned from running these businesses, often the hard way.Data isn't the problem, clarity Is
Chris Hewish, President of Xsolla, framed the problem simply: developers today have access to more data than ever, but that data rarely translates into a clear decision for Monday morning. Xsolla's vantage point across more than 1,500 game teams gives it visibility into what tends to work, and GBI is meant to turn that visibility, paired with outside expertise, into something any studio can put to use.
Who's writing, and what they're covering
The launch collection is broad by design. It includes a veteran indie publishing lead explaining why "ship faster, market louder" no longer works in a market releasing over 21,000 new games a year; one of the original architects of a major virtual world discussing what studios owe players across free-to-play, pay-to-win, and Web3 economies; a market analyst examining the growing mismatch between how much content players are asked to consume and how little time they actually have; and a business development leader reflecting on 15 years and 170 million downloads of a single title, and what that history taught her about preserving player trust. Other contributors cover the rise of India's gaming market, the mechanics behind a hit social deduction game built by a lean team, and how easy distribution has become even as real discoverability has grown scarcer.GBI will also house original research, including a joint study with Newzoo on direct-to-player distribution in PC gaming, as well as dedicated research into gamer behavior across Asia.
Xsolla's role: Fund it, don't steer it
Notably, Xsolla isn't positioning itself as the platform's gatekeeper. Berkley Egenes, the company's Chief Marketing and Growth Officer, said the effort only works if Xsolla stays out of the way, funding a space where operators can disagree openly, including with Xsolla itself, under their own names. To that end, the company has opened GBI to outside contributors through a paid program that ties compensation to a piece's impact, and it's actively recruiting studio operators and researchers to write for it.
Want to learn more?
Games Biz Institute launched in partnership with 80.lv and is now live on xsolla.com, with new articles rolling out through the rest of 2026. For an industry that has plenty of data but too little institutional memory, it's a bet that the missing curriculum was sitting inside the people running these businesses all along.Featured articles
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