Xsolla 2020 Year in Review: Our top product updates and new solutions
by
February 5, 2021
Thank you to our customers for continuing to choose Xsolla as their trusted partner. Our mission is to help developers and publishers focus on what they do best — making games. To that end, we strive to make video game business more efficient and adaptable, and with less resource-intensive teams everywhere.
As 2021 kicks off, here are the highlights from our new solutions and features from the past year.
Payments: More ways to pay, more transparency for fraud
In 2020, our Pay Station and Anti-fraud product teams gave our partners a number of new ways to grow and manage their gaming businesses from a payments perspective.
It's now easier than ever to integrate payments with our Unity and UE4 SDKs. We’ve added new and emerging payment methods in multiple global regions, and in some markets, we were able to secure lower processing fees for common methods. Depending on where and how they paid, users now have options to pay in installments and receive partial refunds.
We were also excited to release our new dispute management interface in Xsolla Publisher Account that creates greater transparency for the process by showing you how we work to win cases.
New features:
- New payment methods in Southeast Asia (OVO, Dana, Linkaja, Smartfren, Indomaret, TrueMoney Wallet, Alipay HK)
- New Boleto Flash® payment method in Brazil with upgrade and installments option
- Lower processing fees for various payment methods in multiple markets:
- In South Korea fees were reduced for 10 payment channels (local credit cards, digital wallets, prepaid cards) with a minimum discount of 0,6% and maximum discount of 1,6%
- Brazil with 2,29% + 0,4 BRL -> 2,29% + 0,25 BRL (fees reduced for Boleto Bancario, introducing Boleto Flash as an upgraded version of old Boleto)
- Indonesia with a minimum discount 1000 IDR and 1% maximum discount of 9% (fees reduced for 3 payment channels: Gudang voucher, DOKU and ATM/bank transfers)
- Japan 0,3% discount (fees reduced for 3 payment channels)
- Partial refunds for credit cards
- Customizable receipts
- Dispute management interface in Xsolla Publisher Account
- Blocklist webhooks feature for improved fraud prevention
How to get started:
- Integrate Pay Station in Publisher Account
- Integrate Pay Station with our UE4 or Unity SDK
Monetization: Sell anything, anywhere
This year, our Buy Button, In-Game Store, and Site Builder product teams worked together to create a single back-end solution to make digital sales easy, flexible, and adaptable to your project needs.
With cross-platform player inventory now available, you can sell anything from game keys to virtual goods across any platform (PC, console, web, and mobile) and sync instantly into your player’s accounts. We also launched promotional tools like discounts, coupons and promo codes, and regional pricing for every store front, inside and outside the game.
This new feature means you share just 5% per transaction for in-game goods versus platform fees that can take as much as 30% of your game's income.
Live demo:
In addition, our new partnership with Dmarket allows you to take your player community to the next level with an in-game economy through virtual item trading.
Benefits to you:
- Variety of site builder templates for selling everything from game keys to virtual goods
- Sell anywhere on PC, console, web, and mobile
- Players get immediate access to purchased items from any platform with synced player inventory
- Offer your players the best deals with pre-integrated tools, like discounts, coupons, and promo codes, and regional pricing
- Create an in-game economy by letting your players sell and trade virtual items with each other
How to get started:
- Integrate Game Keys in Publisher Account
- Integrate Site Builder for selling virtual items in Publisher Account
- Integrate Site Builder for selling virtual currency in Publisher Account
- Request integration for secondary market for in-game items from our account management team at am@xsolla.com
Subscriptions: Easy-to-manage recurring revenue source
This past year, our Subscriptions team refined our product to help partners acquire and retain more subscribers with a number of advanced features, without the need for extensive development resources.
Subscriptions
Xsolla Subscriptions now offers a unified place to create and manage your subscriptions and users, from inside Publisher Account or via API. Now you can easily customize subscription programs without implementation services from Xsolla.
New features
- Upgrades, downgrades and drop rewards: Users can freely switch between plans for faster upsell. Give daily, weekly, or monthly rewards to active users.
- Bundling and promotions: Make your plans more attractive with discounts & bonuses or by combining multiple marketing mechanics.
- Trial and grace periods: Give users a buffer so they can test plans and keep accounts current.
- Account self-management: Let your users renew, freeze, and unfreeze plans with ease.
- Analytics: Get in-depth reports on KPIs & other actionable metrics to predict future revenue.
Benefits to you:
- Create recurring revenue opportunities with low overhead
- Automate custom events and notifications for subscription cancellations, reminders, discounts, and more
- Inspire player loyalty and decrease churn rate
- Generate predictable income streams that studios can rely on when planning long-term updates
In addition, we’ll be releasing two new subscription solutions in the months ahead to help you manage your subscriptions across different payment gateways and game platforms.
Gateway subscriptions
Gateway subscriptions solution lets you store and manage subscriptions across all payments providers. Save time in developing and managing a retention service when migrating or centralizing your subscriptions, and get analytics regardless of payment platform.
Subscriptions for cross-platform games
Subscriptions for cross-platform games solution helps you centralize the flow of subscriptions and user management across different platforms. You can manage all subscriptions and maintain connections to existing payment systems, while our platform-agnostic analytics tool lets you evaluate data points in a central place.
How to get started:
- Integrate Subscriptions in Publisher Account
- Request setup for Gateway Subscriptions and Subscriptions for cross-platform games from our account management team at am@xsolla.com
Publishing: Expanded solutions for global growth
This year, our Launcher, Login and Partner Network product teams worked to develop new solutions and features designed to empower developers of all sizes to engage a global audience of influencers, streamers, and players.
Global Distribution Solution
Global Distribution Solution helps game publishers effectively use dozens of different user acquisition and distribution channels while publishing games worldwide.
We provide a combination of products and services, paired with our relationships in the games industry to get your game in front of a global audience.
Features
- Global payments and anti-fraud with Pay Station
- Adaptive multi-lingual sites and landing pages with Site Builder
- Affiliate marketing to 60+ affiliate networks with Partner Network
- Cross-platform, secure authentication with Login
- Distribution to tier 2 gaming platforms (Game Jolt, Garena, etc.)
- Distribution to web game portals
- Game key distribution to digital marketplaces
Benefits to you:
- Gain access to a variety of distribution channels: game key resellers, digital distribution platforms, affiliate networks, payment systems, social networks, video creators, media outlets, performance advertising agencies, channeling portals.
- Ensure your business is compliant while your user experience is seamless on a global scale, so you can focus on creating unique games.
- Xsolla becomes your front line to setting up connections between collaborators and your company that are based on fair revenue share business terms.
- Earn more money and cover new areas. We handle distribution and user acquisition for your game around the world or in chosen regions with no upfront costs.
How to get started:
- Request a demo for Global Distribution Solution from our account management team at am@xsolla.com
Multi-Platform Publishing Solution
Our Multi-Platform Publishing Solution offers practical, effective ways for you to build and maintain direct relationships with your players at every stage with a custom Launcher and Login.
Features
- Create a custom client app and simultaneously distribute your game across platforms from one place with Launcher
- Enable cross-platform player authentication, achievement tracking, and ownership of player data with Login
- Build revenue-sharing programs with content creators and affiliates through Partner Network
- Create a conversion-driven landing page to showcase your games, sell game keys and virtual goods, and build your community with Site Builder
Benefits to you:
- Works seamlessly alongside existing marketplaces
- Your players, your customers, your branded experience
- Easy player community management and data analytics
- Everything you need to sell (game keys, pre-orders, virtual goods) all in one place
- No upfront costs or integration fees
How to get started:
- Request a demo for Multi-Platform Publishing solution from our account management team at am@xsolla.com
MacOS Launcher
We’ve implemented macOS support for Xsolla Launcher so you can now distribute your games on Macs. This feature is currently only available through Github flow.
Benefit for partner:
Access to players on a new target PC platform
How to get started:
Download the new version of Launcher and build loader in our GitHub repository
Accelerate Your Growth: Influencers Solution
Xsolla Accelerate Your Growth solution streamlines influencer marketing and combines automation with creativity.
Our team helps you integrate Twitch Drops with the revenue-sharing capabilities of Xsolla Partner Network, along with website and authentication to facilitate onboarding. This new tool allows developers to invite, onboard, and segment creators as well as measure and manage partner programs from start to finish on all major gaming platforms.
Benefits for partner:
- Easily manage your events and creators for increased engagement for your game with one single integration. Participating creators can earn sustained revenue through Creator Tags.
- Build mutually beneficial relationships with creators, and as their audience grows, so will yours. Creators bring highly engaged players to your game, you help grow their viewers, and players earn free content Twitch Drops. It’s a win-win-win.
- Get all of this with no upfront costs while Xsolla handles all the back-end logistics, like onboarding, payments to creators and paperwork.
How to get started:
Request integration for Accelerate Your Growth solution from our account management team at am@xsolla.com
Creator Tag Programs
Creator Tag is a perk that game publishers can distribute to video content creators through our partner program. This lets you incentivize creation of more content related to your game. Distribution of tags is easy and gives streamers, reviewers, and influencers the ability to earn money for driving game revenue.
Creators earn their share of revenue from in-game purchases their fans make on any platform.
Benefits to you:
- Compatible on any platform — Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Stadia, Mobile, etc.
- Backend work handled by Xsolla. We take care of all issues related to screening, management, legal agreements, tax compliance, and payouts. We calculate, report, and process payouts to all creators, everywhere around the globe.
How to get started:
- Request integration from our account management team at am@xsolla.com
As we set our sights on 2021, we're excited to continue supporting our partners as you continue to bring fun to the world.
Business Engine iOS App: Access Publisher Account from iPhone
We’re continuing to give you easy ways to manage your business from your smartphone with improvements to our Business Engine iOS app. Some new features you should check out include:
- Payout reports to track your game’s financial performance
- Transaction report with information about revenue, payout amount, taxes, fees and other costs with filters for custom time periods
- In-app chat support for faster and easier help
- Two-factor authentication settings for an extra layer of data protection
Benefits to you:
- Fast access to the most important financial data
- Easier communication with an Xsolla employee to ask questions or share feedback
- Added level of security of your data with two-factor authentication via email or SMS
How to get started:
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