Sanlo, a fintech startup that helps gaming companies manage finances, announced Wednesday the closed beta version of its webshop tool, giving select game developers and studios a plug-and-play solution that works alongside existing stacks their technology. Gaming companies can sign up for a demo starting today.
With Google and Apple charging a 30% fee for in-app purchases, it’s harder than ever for small to mid-sized gaming companies to run profitable businesses. Gaming giant Epic has been protesting Apple’s cut in revenue for years, accusing it of being predatory on smaller businesses.
As a result, many mobile game developers are no longer relying on app stores to generate revenue and are turning to external online stores, a growing trend in gaming where companies can run stores on their own websites for a much lower fee (around 4-10 %) . Additionally, online stores are believed to boost revenue because players buy directly from the gaming company, as opposed to buying from app stores, which reduce sales. In fact, Sanlo said developers can earn up to 25% more revenue with an online store.
“An online store is one of those super tactical steps that actually turns out you can monetize it,” Sanlo co-founder and CEO Olya Caliujnaia told TechCrunch. “The reason is that it’s usually your most dedicated players who go to the online store and get special offers that allow them to do better in the game.”
Image Credits: Sanlo
With Sanlo’s new online store tool, game developers get a number of promotional mechanisms such as exclusive digital items, bundle packs, discount offers and reward programs to incentivize more players to try the game. Developers can also access player data so they can monitor profiles and buy activity to target individual users with exciting offers.
Companies can try and set prices “without price caps,” according to Sanlo. Profits from online store sales are deposited into the developer’s account once a week.
One downside of online stores is that Apple and Google don’t let mobile games advertise them in-app. Sanlo offers marketing tools as a solution to this issue, such as in-game prompts to promote the web store, sending emails to returning visitors and ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) performance tracking.
Sanlo has integrated an unknown number of gaming companies into its store platform, including; Fusebox Gamesthe developer behind mobile titles inspired by the ‘Love Island’ IP.
“The biggest attraction for me was the plug-and-play nature of the Sanlo tool in addition to the practical service it provides,” Terry Lee, COO at Fusebox told us. “We’re a small company without the internal resources to cover all the bases when it comes to supporting an entirely new technical capability.”
Sanlo plans to officially release the new product to all developers this summer.
Caliujnaia and William Liu (CTO) founded Sanlo in 2020. The company’s team touts past experience at Capital One, Earnest, Electronic Arts, Facebook, SigFig, Sony PlayStation, Visa and more.
To date, the company has raised $13.5 million in total funding and is backed by Initial Capital, Index Ventures, Portage Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital, London Venture Partners and Konvoy.
Webstore solutions have been around for years, from more established companies like Xsolla to newer companies like Appcharge. Popular games that take advantage of online stores include Clash of Clans, Game of Thrones: Conquest, Marvel Strike Force and Star Trek Fleet Command.
