The direct-to-consumer (D2C) model is expanding beyond traditional webshops and into the world of user-generated content (UGC), especially on PC and console. In this episode, host Devin Becker is joined by Liam Wiltshire, General Manager at Tebex, to explore how the evolution of private servers, mods, and community-run experiences is shaping new monetization strategies. Liam shares the origin story of Tebex and its integration within the broader Overwolf ecosystem, highlighting how D2C strategies for games like Minecraft, Rust, and Ark differ fundamentally from those in mobile gaming.

The conversation covers the nuances of player relationships in D2C models, including the absence of platform payment rails and notification systems, and how that impacts engagement and monetization design. Devin and Liam also dig into emerging e-commerce strategies such as loyalty systems and upsells, and how Tebex is bringing these tools to individual creators and modders. The episode concludes with a look at industry shifts from regulatory changes to evolving platform policies, and how studios can future-proof their monetization strategies as D2C continues to grow across platforms.

We’d like to thank Heroic Labs for making this episode possible! Thousands of studios have trusted Heroic Labs to help them focus on their games and not worry about gametech or scaling for success. To learn more and reach out, visit https://heroiclabs.com/?utm_source=Naavik&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=Podcast 

This transcript is machine-generated, and we apologize for any errors.

Devin: Hello everyone. I'm your host, Devin Becker, and today I'm delighted to be joined by Liam Wiltshire, the GM of Tebex. Tebex helps game studios and game servers better monetize through direct-to-customer compliance, fraud protection, and a whole lot more. So today, we're gonna discuss some of the realities of direct to customer monetization across multiple platforms.

But just to, to start things off here, could you go over your background and the origins of Tebex, along with its important relationship with Overwolf?

Liam: Sure. Hi Devin. Thanks for, thanks for having me. So, yeah, my name's Liam, and I'm the interim GM at Tebex. I've actually been with Tebex for, for just over nine years.

So, started at the founder's kitchen table, literally just kind of the two of us. It was crazy times. It's very, very different. Now, obviously, initially started as a CTO, so joined to, to lead the technical side of the business. So, did that for a while, and then shifted more into kind of the operations and payment side of the business and then, like I said, more recently, into the GM role. So Tebex's history is super interesting. We actually started for people that are old enough to remember as Minecraft, which solved a really simple but very real problem that UGC creators running servers in Minecraft, the likes of High Pixel and Mineplex.

Back then they had these brilliant, brilliant servers and this amazing content. And people were coming back and people were playing Minecraft for these, for these experiences. But they needed a way to, you know, fund these, these servers. They needed a way to accept money that was kind of safe and global and low friction and didn't involve them having to worry about it.

And that's how we started. So it was, you know, Minecraft. It was very Minecraft specific. We then realized that this same problem existed on other gangs that had servers, the likes of Rust and Arc and Garri’s Mode, et cetera. You know, all these things around payments and chargebacks and tax and fraud, none of that should sit on a hobbyist or a small team.

Right. Really good example of that was actually War Bandits, still a very popular server in the rust community. We were able to save them, I think it's like over a thousand hours by taking all that responsibility for like chargebacks and tax and all that stuff so they can spend the time building their brilliant server and their amazing experiences.

The way that that then continued to progress is that we started to realize, well, hold on. This isn't just a, a game server thing, right? This isn't unique to servers. This happens across all UGC, moding apps, overlays, and also with games themselves in game purchases and studios and, and mobile games and, and cross platform and everything else.

So, as you mentioned, we were actually acquired by Overwolf, just coming up for four years ago, be four years in February, in fact. And they specialize in UGC. They are like the UGC people creating this new profession, this new guild of creators. And the way that, um, Tebex and Overwolf work really well is this kind of free UGC kind of ad supported mods and apps and Tex's kind of premium UGC support, just like really worked together so nicely.

And between kind of between both sides, the, the distribution and the tooling and the ad network on the overall side, and then this entire monetization stack, and growth engine that Tebex has. It just means that we can support kind of studios that are doing games as a platform, UGC creators, kind of the whole range across proper D2C ecosystems.

Devin: Well, it does seem appropriate that of all genres to start with, to help get money, that they need to survive, survival games seems very, very appropriate.

Liam: So, it would, yeah, it works really well.

Devin: Yeah. Good on you guys. I mean, now that you've had a chance to grow a bit since like, some of those early days as well, like what kind of customers do you guys generally work with in terms of like the direct to customer monetization, like across different platforms, different genres, things like that. Just give a better idea of who you work with usually.

Liam: For sure, and I think the interesting thing is that because of our UGC background, we had this really strong cross-platform approach. We've worked in all games from ARC to Rust, to, to Minecraft, to, you know, GTA, and so on. And it means that we are very at home, both on desktop and mobile.

I was, I'm experiencing UGC around mod, around moderation, around content and safety. IP compliance means we're really well placed to support games as a platform, and that's something that I'm, I'm loving. So games as a platform, we can talk about it a bit more, I'm sure, but you know, from the early days that it was very much like desktop only, and, and that's kind of where it was, we are seeing it grow and I'm really excited for, for 2026, I think we're really gonna see a, an explosion of, you know, games as a platform across mobile and console and PC.

And that's something that, that we are really, really, you know, really excited for. So, between, yeah, private servers, mod authors, your premium art in, in arts, fiber, ascended, Tebex is the kind of underlying, kind of payments infrastructure that powers that. We try and stay outta the spotlight as much as we can.

That's not, yeah, we're not here to be the, the heroes. Right. You know, just today, the, the Ninja Turtles and the, and the Power Rangers, they're the, they're the heroes in more ways than one, I guess. Um, but we're, we are not here to be that, we try and sit behind the scenes, but those, those premium mods, PC first studios, uh, mobile studios, such as, you know, Boom Bits Ex, et cetera, we do, you know, everything from one creator with a laptop all the way up to kind of enterprise studios and, and we're really proud to work with, with such a range.

Devin: Well, I gotta imagine then you guys having already worked with GTA servers before, are really looking forward to that release as well as, you know, from, from what I'd seen, in, in sort of like, you know, leaks and other things potentially coming out from the studios, they were definitely more interested having acquired sort of the, the five M developers, like looking at what they might be doing, more broadly around mods to actually support them directly with their own launchers, things like that.

A bit, a bit of a tangent, but I just wanted to mention that that does seem like a lot of exciting potential future for what you guys are doing. But just kinda getting more into the details, how does this sort of creator economy work, like with private servers or just bonds in general? Like, in differ fundamentally from like mobile game studio, like mobile studios or even PC studios that are like actual game studios, and that whole direct to customer like monetization experience.

Liam: Yeah, I think, I mean, I suppose there's a bit of a, a false assumption that, that I'm gonna challenge a little bit. I don't, I don't wanna say the host, I'm not, I don't wanna challenge the host too much, but I'm going to that like, creator economies are seen as this one thing. And I think that's, that's kind of the thing that we, we've seen over the last kind of decade and a half, is that even within creator economies, you've got lots of different areas, right?

So, a game like Kix, I, I kind of named them at the beginning. They've got a Guinness World record for concurrency. And it was something like 150,000 concurrent players. Now, that's the scale of, of many games. You know, there are games that don't have 150,000 concurrent plays. So, the way you have to kind of think and approach an economy like that is, you know, finely balanced economy.

You know, like true economies in game economies become very, very difficult. Um, you probably, a lot of these studios and, and, and high pick is one they want to avoid pay to win. They don't wanna be a pay to win instead, but that's not what they do. So, working out what is gonna be interesting to players and what is gonna get players kind of engaged and enthused, but isn't just pay to win, is, is a really big thing.

And obviously that is a challenge that also crosses over to a lot of mobile games and a lot of desktop games. But at the same time, like High Pixel, massive concurrent players, but one of their core gameplay elements are these mini games, which are much more like mobile 'cause they're fast paced.

There's like a short game session. You go in, it might be a five-minute game and you're out again. Then you go into another one, you pay, pay that game and you're out again. So, it's much more like that kind of quick, short, short lifecycle gaming session that we tend to see on mobile. So even within one server, you've got kind of both, both ends of the spectrum.

You've got other servers. So, on the other end you have things like GTA and role play servers. Now they are very much, you're investing your time into that. You are, it's total immersion. It's very much, I am spending hours and hours of my life in this one scenario, this one piece of gameplay. So we then mix and match different areas based on that experience.

Modding, on the other hand, is very, very different. That's more like selling a core gamer. So, that's much less like mobile because we're selling an individual mod that's enhances the experience. So, yeah, it, it, it really is a mix. You know, you have long session, you have long sessions of big cars, which are very different.

You know, you will have players that will buy multiple items in one go. So, if you are on an RP server and you want some new, new clothes for your character and you'll maybe be changing careers in game, you might be, you are gonna be buying both of those at the same time. So, you are building a cart and you're checking out.

That is obviously something that you are never gonna see really on mobile. Mobile, it's very much I'm buying this thing, get through as quickly as possible, get back into the game. I think the key takeaway though, out of all of this, is that for private service, D2C is native and web stores are native.

Like we've been doing this for years. You know, servers like high pixel servers, like, or creators like Gabs servers, like UKRP have had web stores for, you know, over a decade in some cases, whereas with mobile, it's very much a new thing and it's about that behavior shift that we're having to retrain players that this is the, the new normal. And I think that's the biggest difference.

Devin: Right, because you're not trying to get around the payment rails that were sort of enforced for a while. Exactly, one thing you brought up that made me, made me wonder around pay to win and, and things like that. Where, are you guys ever looking at, for example, like a Roblox design patterns for what people are doing for, because you know, there's a variety of things that it's individual creators coming up with their own sort of IEP sort of schemes within Roblox that are, that use the, the native currency as opposed to being like a typical cash IEP system.

But you guys look for those patterns because it is sort of like, it, it suits to an extent what you guys are doing. And as a second part of that, are you guys looking at the Fortnite edition of IEP, and, and seeing about, you know, how you can work that into your systems or at least look at it?

Liam: Yeah, I think that the, the wider pattern and the wider thing that's interesting around, like you said, like the robots model where it's kind of a, almost like a cashless or of fiat less, I suppose is more accurate ecosystem, is the ability to keep kind of money within the ecosystem for longer, particularly from like UGC angle, where for us, for example, a lot of our creators are also customers. And you'll find this across a lot if you've got games as a platform where you can run experiences and you can also play other people's experiences.

It is that kind of, it's not like you're an, it's no, you're not a creator or a player. You are both, which is super exciting. And this is one of the things that I love, right? You know, this is why I'm so excited for games as a platform because it's making this so much more possible. But therefore, from a, I guess, a commercial concept, one of the really exciting things is to be able to keep kind of that money in the ecosystem.

So, I buy, you know, virtual currency for a particular game, I might, you know, I might buy a script. Let's say I'm building an experience, but I'm not a brilliant scripter. I might buy a script that does something that I want in my game. So, I buy that from someone who's produced a script within, like this game's marketplace, within this game's economy.

I use that in my game. I then receive currency for producing, you know, in this game. So, someone's then playing my experience in that they're buying content. So, I receive that. I then might want to upgrade my game. I want, might want to do more with it. And so, I may then buy a 3D model to add to my gamers and you character or whatever else.

And you can kind of keep it within the ecosystem, which is great for, for the studios because at the end of the day, someone's gonna take that cut for each transaction, someone's taking the cut. And I would much rather the studio takes that cut than the bank. That's, you know, some people might, might not be too happy with that, but that's, that's my view.

I'd much rather, you know, I'd much rather a game studio be able to receive an extra. Percent on the transaction or whatever, then, you know, JPM taking their, their piece or whoever it might be. So that for me is, is the really exciting thing. And that's the trend I think we're gonna see is that there'll be this, this concerted effort to be like, let's, you know, let's introduce, spend back, let's kind of, you know, have sec kind of e economy flows because it is better around, it means, you know, pricing can be a little bit lax.

It's cheaper to process these payments. It means that players kind of feel invested in the platform and in, in the entire economy from like a marketplace to the games to, you know, whatever else. And I, I genuinely think it's a way that everybody wins.

Devin: Nice. Well, well hopefully that, that continues to be the case because, there's definitely a lot of effort put in that direction.

Liam: Yeah, for sure.

Devin: And you touched on this a little bit, but I wanted to dive deeper into the aspects of the player relationships. So you mentioned, obviously like there's, there's not the nativity of the, the payment rails on, you know, PC and even on like some of these other platforms where it's, yeah, technically you pay into say, you know, buy Roblox or something, but then you're spending that and it has its own flow that's not part of necessarily, you know, go payment rails that are built into that.

But how does the overall player relationship work when you're kind of, you know, you talk about not having to retrain people and things like that necessarily. So then how does it work across that, like, you know, you also have like the lack of say maybe frequency of play or lack of notifications, those things that you'd get from mobile that you have in addition to the payment rails.

Just like how broadly would you see across?

Liam: Yeah, for sure. And I, I guess this is where, you know, and, and this is something that I think mobile studios can definitely learn from D2C because D2C has always been about owning that relationship. There is a real desire to support that community. A real, you know, motivation to be like I am part, you know, I identify as part of, you know, the High Pixel community.

I identify as part of the World Bandit community. I identify as part of, you know, some of these communities. I mean, like I said, High Pixel has got players that been playing on that server for over a decade. There is that real like, you know, dedication and, and loyalty. Loyalty, I guess in that, that's the word I was looking for.

And that's something that, that these, these games have built over time and they do have, like, while you are in the game, you will get little reminders now and again. You know, it'd be quite common to say, Hey, so-and-so's purchased, you know, this, this little, uh, pet that follows 'em around, you know, get yours at, and the link to the store.

Or you know, a little pop-up that says, Hey, you know, we're, we're running, we're gonna be running a Black Friday promotion, we're gonna be running, you know, a Christmas promotion, whatever else. You will still have those kind of prompts and those reminders that, hey, the store is there and, and there is really great value to be had.

But because of that, that loyalty and that kind of, that owning of the relationship, and that's what really we're talking about. It's building that kind of player loyalty building that, you know, we want to be part of this, this, you know, this community and, and be, and be part of, of this game and support, you know, the creators of this, this content, right?

And that's what kind of control of the play relationship really means. And I think that's something that, you know, is something that mobile studios can learn because we know, and I know I, I'm very fickle when it comes to mobile. I'll, you know, if I know I've got a 12-hour flight somewhere, I'll be like, right, what games can I download that gonna be offline games that'll keep me occupying for maybe half an hour each and I, and I'll download six cases.

But there's very little loyalty there. And so, I'm guilty of it as well. And I'm sure, I'm sure we all are to, to varying degrees, but this is the exciting thing that by taking more ownership of that relationship and having more direct like interaction with the players rather than it being via this like faceless algorithm.

I suppose you can start to build that loyalty and that kind of sense of belonging to a, a wider community, which then naturally PE players go, well, I want to support these games. I love this game. This is, I want support. I'm gonna see what's on the store. I'm gonna check out their Black Friday sales. I'm gonna, you know, engage with the wider community. You know, maybe we'll talk on, you know, there, maybe there's a disport or a forum if you are of a certain age like myself, whatever that might be. And so that's, that's what, you know, that's what control of the player relationship really means, is building that kind of brand loyalty almost.

And that's something that I think, you know, mobile and PC studios to a degree can definitely learn from kind of the more old school UGC.

Devin: Yeah. It's funny too, 'cause like you, you, you're comparing mobile and, and PC and stuff like that to their, you don't necessarily, you, you mentioned the loyalty issue and it's like we don't really have that same style of user acquisition.

On PC and, and mods that you do for mobile, which might also lead to sort of disloyal relationship that sort of, you know, whatever, you know, goes as opposed to like, you know, the word of mouth or whatever else is you generally leading to people joining these communities? It, it, I think it has a little bit more, being prepared to be engaged with the community as opposed to just, Hey, I saw an ad in another mobile game that made me download this mobile game, which doesn't even play like the ad.

Liam: Well, I mean, that is true and like I said, definitely things that we can learn, but it's, it's an interesting thing because one of the other ways that, that I know, you know, particularly kind of, you know, PC and cross platform games as well, kind of build that loyalty is obviously around kind of influences and influence influences and streamers.

But like my children for example, and so kind of personal example, definitely my son plays more on mobile than he plays kind of on PC. Because yeah, he plays it like when he is on the bus to school or he is just out or whatever. And yet when he's on YouTube or when he is on Twitch and he is watching, it's all PC streamers, you know, and it might be Roblox, it might be Minecraft, it might be, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever else it might be. But it's gonna be, it, it's predominantly kind of PC or sometimes console, but mainly PC-based games, kind of PC streamers. So, the, but it's not building awareness and loyalty again for the, the mobile games.

Right. So, I think this is where there's that, that shift I think we will see. And I think some of that is probably the, the, the economics of a mobile game. You know, losing such a big slice for such a long time, it makes something that, you know, all the margins got that much thinner. You, the, the cost of, you know, engaging with these, some of these, these influences becomes higher.

And, I, I do think we're gonna stop, see that now that you're gonna have more visibility, more, like I said, direct relationships, you know, the, there will be genuine long-term value. It's not, we just need to get, you know, we want to get a player a, a purchase from this player now because they'll be gonna be playing something else next week.

It's actually, we want this player to be playing our game for the next year, the next two years. The, the kind of longtime, the lifetime value of that player is now suddenly very, very different. And it changes the whole complexity of the thing. Right?

Devin: Yeah, I was gonna say that like a lot more long tail LTV as opposed to like, okay, we've got maybe like a three-month LTV for most players at most.

Obviously like, you know, a lot of mobile games don't last nearly as long as PC games. You know, there's definitely some exceptions as most of the top 20 charts usually show. But, uh, PC definitely, I mean, people are still playing counterstrike even though it's only had, you know, updates here and there.

So it, it is definitely an interesting different environment. But you know, speaking of some of the stuff you're talking about with mobile, but also broadening up both across the, the two different platforms, what have you seen change more recently as a result of a lot of these different sort of legal decisions?

Many of them involving Epic especially, but also, you know, like there's, there's the EU legislation stuff and just in general, like the regulatory and legal environment has changed quite a bit more. Yeah. Like, but this, it isn't, doesn't just affect mobile. Right? This is definitely something that should be affecting you guys.

I mean, especially since Epic isn't exactly a mobile first company, right? Like, so it definitely is trying to bring people towards where they are on PC as well. So, what are you kind of seeing across all of that?

Liam: Absolutely. I, I think you're right. I think, you know, this, this whole concept that platforms enough.

Right now we're looking at kind of Google and, and Apple, but platforms more generally are being forced towards greater openness. Now, for me, that that's the, that is the exciting thing is like, I know we talk a lot about, hey, you know, the savings on fees, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And that's super important. Like, I'm not gonna downplay that. As I mentioned, it changes the, the economics of a lot of the other things that, that we can do. But it really comes back to by, by forcing that greater openness and that studio choice, we are gonna see, as I said, more control of the player relationship. But it also means that there's more creative control.

So, one of the things right now is if you want to, you're producing a mobile game and you want it to obviously, you know, list highly in the Google store, and you are, you, you are reliant on that for your survival. You therefore do kind of have to degree build the game. That is going to show up in the search.

I mean, you know, Google Play, SEO is its whole, entire thing, right? And that's, that's a whole heap of stuff that I've looked at. And one, and glad I don't have to get involved in that, honestly. But it is, you know, it's this whole thing and being able to actually own that relationship and, and own your community and be like, Hey, this is actually the game we've wanted to make for years.

And now that we, you know, we are not beholden to having to rank highly in the results or having to be found for searches or whatever it might be, this is the game that we've wanted to make for you guys forever. And you've got your loyal player base, your loyal fan base, and you can do that. And that's, that creative control I think is super exciting.

But I think it also goes the same for, you know, for, for, for PC. We are seeing, you know, new distribution channels, you know, Steam is obviously still very, very important and it's gonna be important forever. A hundred percent. I, I don't, you know, myself personally. I don't want to go back to the time when I had like 20 CD wallets full of CDs and you're trying to find the right one and then it scratched and it doesn't work.

Devin: And or five different publisher specific platforms.

Liam: Yeah, and I mean, you know, when you, when you're of a certain age, you remember that stuff, you go actually may maybe we're, yeah, it's quite good now, right? But at the end of the day, we are seeing these different, these different kinds of the distribution mechanisms and we are seeing more games that are, that are, are, are kind of self-publishing and, and self-distributing.

You know, obviously we, we've had, and, and that since very recently obviously that the repurchase of Hightail and, and kind of their plans seem to be from, from what I, from what I've seen is, is it's gonna be self, you know, they're gonna have their own launcher and they're gonna have their own, you know, kind of distribution, which, you know, remove, you know, gives them the control to build the game they want to build.

Right? And, and again, and that's a great example of having control of that relationship because they have such a loyal fan base through the UGC. And this is where those things tie so nicely together that. They have this UGC kind of loyal fan base that, that, you know, they're gonna be interested in high when it comes out.

You, you, you just know it's gonna happen. And that is a, a classic example of when you, when you make these platforms open up and give more power back to the studios, these are the things that are possible. We are gonna see, I think, a lot more Player First economies, you know, studios own the IP, and that is, that's great, but being able to then open up that IP to your community and be like, Hey, create some cool stuff for this.

Like that, that, that's the thing that excites me. My, my first game, the game that I play most is Uck. I play with my wife. We have our server with some friends on it as well. It's great. But the thing we always do is the vanilla out game is great, but whenever we start a new, a new map, the first thing we do is I might make sure we've got the right mods installed, make sure we've got the Power Ranger of skins installed, make sure we've got, you know, whatever.

And being able to say, this is the, the economy, this is the IP that we've got. This is the like, almost like an engine, like a Roblox type, you know, here's a game engine. Produce really cool stuff with it is so exciting. And obviously we've seen it on PC for a long time. I think we are gonna see with this continuing opening up that it becomes easier because, you know, rewarding content creators is right at the end of the day, they are spending their time and their passion and making these games more relevant.

You know, again, Minecraft’s a brilliant example. People still buy Minecraft more than a decade after its launch. And that is predominantly due to these amazing experiences of UGC. So, it is a hundred percent right that these creators should be rewarded for that. And we should create this guild of creators that the Oval is doing.

But we want studios to win as well, because ultimately it is their IP. So, I think this isn't the, the opening up of these platforms makes that a lot easier to achieve that. The different, the different players can all have their piece. And I think we're gonna see a lot of this being taken advantage of and a lot of these games as a platform opening up over the next couple of years because of it.

Devin: Nice. I mean, definitely a very optimistic take and hopefully something that, that continues to progress without legislation blocking and instead supporting it. But a bit of a curve ball. It might take, it might take some time, but we'll get there. We'll get there. Yeah. I mean, two steps forward, one step back kind of tends to be the way it works, but I, I do appreciate Epic at least spending some of that Fortnite money to help push that forward regardless of what their motives actually are.

I think we all owe them a Christmas present. Yeah, just go, just go buy some Fortnite skins. Call it a day. But, I, I, based off something you said, I wanna throw a little bit of a cripple at you, which is, you're talking about distribution and mentioning Steam and stuff like that. With Steam Deck, getting some decent traction and, the Steam sort of like the, the, the Gabe Cube as people like to call it, you know, all the sort of platforms they're, they're trying to introduce and expand that out, have you guys looked at that as, obviously, you know, you're trying to support Steam games and, and this is a, that is a platform instead of Windows you're looking, or even Mac, you're looking at this sort of Linux based system, and, you know, seemed, seemed to have been out for a little while, so there's some time to process it.

Obviously, the other stuff isn't out yet. Have you guys like, looked at that, seen how you could maybe support working on that platform? Or is it just like, Hey, it's pretty plug and play, despite being like a Linux-based system, we could support it pretty easily, 'cause it, it's not exactly, you know, the normal thing you'd be dealing with.

Liam: Yeah, for sure. And I, I think you've kind of hit the down the head a little bit. It's not something we've ha we've spent a huge amount of time looking at kind of in our, in our kind of environment. But, you know, with it being kind of Linux based and it is, it's more, even, even, you know, the steam deck is more akin to a kind of miniature PC than, you know, like a, a traditional concept. I mean, I mean, this is the conversation bounce the, the Steam game that, you know, they're saying, you know, it's going to be seen as a PC almost. It's gonna be, probably gonna be priced like a PC. It's not, it's not to be considered in the same manner as a console.

And so that does give a lot of flexibility around, you know, kind of, you know, web browsers and all of these things that, you know, a lot of the, the, the, the same patterns that we've used in the past do kind of cross over. That said, the other thing that I think a lot of games and, and a lot of kind of merchant record and monetization platforms like Tab are looking at is how can we remove as much distraction from the game as possible?

You know, like anytime, we always say that anytime someone is spent paying, they're not playing. So how can we keep cutting it down? How can we keep reducing that? So, kind of in game workshops is saying that, that we've spent a lot of time working on, both actually in the UGC space. So, we're, we're, we're currently exploring ways to make that possible within UGC.

We've, we've done it for years and years within Minecraft. Now for Minecraft, you still have to go outside to make a final payment, but you can browse and, and Android some car and do all that in game, just go out to make the payment. We're exploring it for other games that we support, and we're, we're working on that exact same pattern with some of the, the mobile and, and desktop studios that we work with.

So, actually removing as much of that kind of alter of game experience as possible is something that is gonna be important. Obviously the challenge on mobile is that you can kind of do it, it's different degrees of what you're allowed to do. Right. And this is, you know, one of the big challenges right now for mobile is, you know, the law in Japan, which is obviously changing in the next day or two, is different from the law in Europe is different from the law in the us which is kind of like who really knows and all of the, and then other like Brazil is coming looking at it, but there's not made decisions yet. And, and yeah, we've got, yeah, we've got internally this massive spreadsheet of this is the current state of play right now for the, all these countries.

And like, we end update like every single day to keep on top of it, 'cause it is, it is truly insane. So that's a, that's a big part of the challenge is, you know, you can remove the friction in some places, in some places in other countries, the friction is, is still there. Right? So, I think that's, yeah, that's, I know kind of veered off topic slightly, but, but the same challenges exist that like on Steam deck, you know, it is small screen.

Do you kind of want to try and go through the purchase experience or do you leverage things like, you know, with Tab we have Safe Payment matters. So, you can save your card, you can save your PayPal account, you can save your, Nava Pay account, you know, in, if you've got a s if you're a sub, really you got WhatsApp N Pay wallet.

You can save all these things against yourself. So, we are again, again, exploring ways again. Well, okay, if you've got the in-game browser and we already know the payment method, can we just do a simple thing like where maybe you, they get text a onetime password so they, you know, so we know that they bought the rose it, they get, they get a text with a onetime password, they key that in, in game and then the purchase is done and they don't need to leave the game at all.

So, these, I think the things that are more, it's like across the board, how can we reduce friction? How can we reduce out of game time, which is then going to benefit steam decks, it's gonna benefit any type of handheld, whether that's mobile, whether that's, you know, you know, whatever. But also, you know, PC and, and UGC as well.

Devin: Well, I'd appreciate that because the Steam purchase flow is a ridiculous number of steps already. Like, I don't think it would be hard for you to beat Steam's payment reels because it's seriously like six or seven steps if you're paying via PayPal and they're just to purchase like a, a $5 item in a game. So yeah, should, should be a low bar to, to go.

Liam: I'll, I'll let I, I'll let you know as soon as we're there.

Devin: Yeah, definitely. No, I, I have a Steam Deck user, so I'll definitely look forward to that. Somebody who owned a Steam Link and the original controller and all that. Uh, I would love to see what you do with those payment flows.

Awesome. But we, we did a release, Naavik released a deep dive recently in the direct-to-customer payments, and kinda the future of that. And it's really interesting to look at one aspect that I wanted to kinda dig into your thoughts on, which is this sort of idea of moving from these really simplistic web shops to this more full e-commerce experience, where it's not just, you're just basically replicating the IAP screen onto a web browser.

You're actually trying to build a full on e-commerce site with, with shopping carts and loyalty programs. I mean, obviously there's, there's a little bit of loyalty program stuff already, but it could be a bit more robust, it could be a bit more like a real web store, yeah. What are your guys' thoughts on, on that?

Like, are, is that stuff you guys are working on, stuff you've explored, like what are the overall thoughts there?

Liam: Yeah, so it's something that we, we definitely do kind of think about a lot. So, one of the things that, that we see is purchasing and, and maybe it's an age thing as well. I think it depends on the, the age demographic of your players, but you know, purchasing on PC, we, we do see the average spend is, is quite a bit higher. I know we, we've shared this, this with you guys recently, but it's, you know, it's, it's a good kind of 10 or so percent higher than on mobile. Now, for me, again, of a certain age that seems quite obvious. Like I still, if I'm buying flight tickets, I very rarely buy them on my phone.

I will still go to my laptop to buy or, or, or a tablet or lease to buy tickets for flights and things because I'm like, I, I dunno. It's, it's a, it's a thing. And, and, but I think there is that there, there isn't a greater element of trust when you are kind of buying from a, a web browser experience or, you know, a, a true web shop experience, right.

As opposed to a quick in-game kind of one. Bam. Thank you ma'am. Sort of, sort of journey, right? So, a lot of what we are seeing and a lot of what we think about is how you make that kind of web shop experience second nature, and this is the thing, right? It, it's, we want to, I mentioned at the beginning, retrain players to be like, this is the normal.

You're much like on UGC where people go, well, of course you've got a workshop. Of course that's, that's just normal. Having that experience where you go, actually you're gonna have a curated, shocking experience, but it's not just gonna be the quick buy, pay back in the game kind of thing is important.

And a lot of, a lot of the mechanics that we're seeing kind of support that. So, a great example is obviously you, you talked about loyalty programs and that's great kind of once you are used to shopping. But actually, how do you train someone to visit the web shop in the first place? And this is where one of the things that we, we advocate for a lot is to move the.

Like the daily perks and a lot of mobile games have this mechanic, right, where you, you time, you log in, you, you get a hundred calls, you get one 50 points on day two, you get some gems. On day three, you get, you know, a bundle box, on day four, whatever it might be. And actually one things we advocate for is moving that to the web shop or having a second, you know, a second set on the web shop because then you are training players to go and visit the shop every day to claim that reward.

And okay, on day one, they're probably just gonna claim the reward and exit back out to the game. On day two, they probably might just claim the reward, exit back to the game. But on day three they might go, you now that's interesting and hadn't seen that before. And then they start to explore and by the time you get to kind of 5, 6, 7, um, they are in that habit of going what's on the web, what, what's on the web shop today? So, I think yes, things like, you know, all, all the normal web shop things like regional pricing, like being able to gift to other players. That's again, that's part of that community building that when you have a true community and we see a lot in UG. Players will buy content for other players.

And there's no, there's like no expectation. There's no like, whatever. It's just like they, they've built these friendships and these relationships and it's near Christmas. It's like, Hey, I'm gonna get you that, that little pet that you've wanted for, for the last six months or whatever. And we see that in, in UGC.

We see it across the board. Gifting is one of the most used features across Minecraft, across, Five m across Rust. It's used, it's used across the board in, in UGC. And so those sorts of features, the gifting and, and creator codes, again, we talked about wanting to engage with kind of streamers and influencers.

More creator codes is a feature that, you know, we see commonly on, say, Fortnite, you know, the support or creator program and something that we have on, on Tebex for, you know, across the platform. It's available to UGC, it's available to PC, it's available to mobile, but this is, these, these are things that, not just saying it's just that one IAP purchase job done.

You can, you know, using credit cards, using gifting, using , you know, these, these, these mechanisms to get people coming back, build that community that we talked about. And it's, that's the real aim here is saving the, saving the whatever it'll be. I think we all know at this point, as much as I don't think the proposed settlement is gonna go through as is, I think we have to be realistic Google and are still gonna get their piece.

Like, this isn't gonna be free. Like I think anyone who says otherwise, you know, I admire their optimism., So I think, you know, I think we know that's the case, but having that control and building that relationship with your community through a true web shop experience is what's going to kind of make the difference and, and really move the needle, not just now, but for the next 2, 5, 10 years.

Devin: I think that makes sense to be like, what could we do on the web shop that maybe is difficult to do in client or is more community oriented than would make, would make sense in client as well. Or, or even just supporting like beyond creator codes, just affiliate codes. Right. Which is something that is difficult to do, like with, unless you're doing some in-game deep link thing.

Right? So, it, it is interesting to look at it as a platform that can do more rather than just, Hey, let's skip the, the 30% cut, try and get, get a little bit smaller. Right? Like, I think we're trying to move beyond that. And it's something you've mentioned to me probably as well, that that's a big thing to think about is moving beyond that mentality.

And obviously that's nice, right? Making more money, especially for your company, making a lot of money, making a lot more money by, by getting rid of that, which of course, you know, was some epic's motivation to begin with. But it is good to move beyond that.

Liam: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I do think, I think, I think you're right. I think that whole, like the headline of you're gonna make more money is brilliant. And don't get me wrong, that's a brilliant hook to like, it's a good lead. Be able to talk. Yeah. It's a good lead. Right. You know, to, to say to, to any studio, whether it's, whether it's desktop, whether it's mail, but like, hey, do you guys want to spend more money?

Like it's a great way to start a conversation, but it isn't the true like end goal for us. Like that whole giving power back to these studios and, and giving that kind of, that ownership. Well still taking away the complexity, 'cause that's the thing is, you know, there are, there are definitely studios that are obviously doing this themselves and they're gonna actually, we're gonna run our own payment stack.

We're gonna do all our own optimization, we're gonna handle all the tax and things. And that's like, that's great. I, I recently did a, a keynote to the Live Service Gaming Summit in London. And one of the things I said is, if I had a magic wand and I could put payments experts inside every studio, I would, I would do, it would be brilliant.

I would love it. The reality is that. Most studios are actually downsizing, right? Studios are getting smaller. They're not wanting to headcount. We are seeing, you know, these, these, these announcements of, you know, having to, to make layoffs because, because of the, the state of the, the global co economy right now.

So being able to use something, you know, like a merchant record partner, someone like a Tebex or whoever to say, look, we will, we will basically be that internal team that you never had to hire. And that's the thing that, like, that's something that I love. I love thinking about this stuff. I love talking about this stuff, as I'm sure you've probably guessed that we can be, yeah, we can be that extension to the studio.

We can kind of advise on a lot of this stuff and be like, Hey, this is how you can build these relationships, but the relationship is yours. It's not types, it's not whoever else it is your relationship. And this is, I think that's this thing that, like I said, you know, the headline's great for kind of starting the conversation but actually breaking down the, Hey, you can, you can't do the things you want to do, you can, you know, have, you know, have better relationships with these, these influencers and, and, you know, referral programs and affiliate codes and, you know, abandoned baskets. You know, one of those things like if I cancel a purchase on mobile, it just goes, your purchase has been cancelled.

And I go, okay, you know, whereas, you know, one of the things that we'll do is, is if you, if you start going through the checkout and you, and, and you and you bail out, they'll be like, Hey, we, we saw you started, you didn't finish. Was there a problem? Can we temp you back? You know, depending on the studio, and again, this is obviously per studio and whether they're, they're comfortable with this, it might be a, Hey, you know, here's, here's a, a small, a small discount, or, you know, you go and finish a purchase now and you'll get a free extra bundle or, you know, whatever it might be.

So, we do all those things that, that are very, yeah, are certainly not impossible to do in game, um, particular mobile, but there are a lot harder. Whereas we can make that, you know, and, and I think again, you know, a lot of merchant record platforms and a lot of well-built web shops such as Tabex make those things a lot easier and we handle all the, the, the headaches and the heavy lifting and leave and leave the studio to just keep building kickass content.

Devin: So, I, I mean, just getting into this some more of the nitty gritty details like of trying to handle these sorts of payments outside of the payment rail systems.

I'm kinda curious how you guys look at like subscriptions or some something this other, gives us a platform and stuff, but especially subscriptions because it's like, normally that's handled by the payment rail system and there's like a centralized management for it that they could potentially have. Like there's a bit different approach than I think you guys probably could do on the sort of web platforms. How are you guys approaching subscriptions especially?

Liam: Yeah, and I think this is where kind of D2C really can shine actually, because, you know, again, we've talked about fees, we've talked about more control. We've talked about kind of that better lifetime value by building that kind of long-term relationship. You have that long tail of LTV, but I think the, the challenge that a lot of studios sitting that we've spoken to have faced. And, and I had this exact conversation where, you know, a studio sort of said to me, look, we, we, we have like a battle pass thing, but like 80% of all subscriptions failed.

And it, and it kind of, we, we dug into it a little bit and the reason was that for them, a lot of their players, because of their like advertising cycles, a lot of their players would start kind of just before payday effectively, which then meant they'd make the first purchase, it'll come to renew. And you know, as happens, you get to the end of the month, you've, there's more months than money sometimes, right?

And so yeah, they'd try and you'd travel you the subscription and it would fail and okay then maybe a retry mechanism and it fail and then it kind of gives up. Whereas, you know, you couldn't tailor a lot more because it's individually calibrated. You can say, well actually we are gonna give a 10-day grace period

'cause we know that a lot of players are then gonna get aid and then the subscription's gonna, and that's something where, you know, when you've got a one size fits all, you have to kind of set the subscriptions and these, these retry mechanisms do percent exist. You know, Google has this retry mechanism, apple has this retry mechanism, but it has to kind of be configured in a way that works for like the majority, I suppose, whereas rather than it being pinned down like different countries, you know, you have, you know, countries like in the, in the UK and most of Europe being paid monthly, super normal, other countries being paid weekly or biweekly, much more common.

So, understanding where your player base is and understanding kind of their unique kind of needs means that you are much more likely to keep that successful kind of subscription going again, continuing to build that loyalty, continue to build that lifetime value. And that's something that, that, that we really, we really push.

You know, on top of that, obviously, you know, having the right subscription methods, so in a lot of places you still see. You know, okay, well you can subscribe with a card and PayPal and that's about it. Whereas yeah, South Korea, most people don't use a branded, like a, you know, an internationally branded Visa card or MasterCard, some that have PayPal, but less so. A lot of them want to pay their subscriptions with Nava pay or Toss pay or, or, or those sorts of things. You know, Alipay in China, again, this is what people use to pay for subscriptions, MEPE in Japan, for example. So definitely that whole, you know, having the local subscriptions as well is super important and it's something that, because that's what we specialize in, we specialize in understanding the, the payments kind of ecosystem.

We specialize in understanding how a player in Brazil is different from a player in Europe is different from a player in North America and by age, you know, a player in North America that's 16 is gonna be very different from a player in North America that's 60, for example. And so understanding all those differences and, and that actually what's right for one cohort of players is gonna be very, very different to what's right from another cohort of players is what taking this control back and understanding your community and understanding kind of your player base it is, is, is really, really valuable because it means you can make these things much more successful, continue to build that, that loyalty, that relationship, that l tp.

Devin: Yeah. So it's definitely nice that it's like a little, not as one size fits all, although I think there's an interesting flip side to that. It's, 'cause you made me think about, um, Google's retrade mechanism, which was kinda interesting is, and, and very annoying sometimes as a customer is if a payment fails, it will look at your other payment options that you've put into Google Pay and just be like, well obviously you wanted to pay with a different one.

We're not gonna ask you, we're just gonna charge you whoever we can. Which is interesting because it's like that isn't just for that game or that device, it goes across like, Hey, I have a Google Workspace subscription and then I have like game in app subscriptions and those are pulling from the same pool of payments.

So, like I might have one that I want, I'm like, yeah, I definitely, definitely make sure you resubscribe to my workspace, but I don't really care as much about a game suddenly. Like if I put in say, a privacy card for, to use for the game, it's just gonna be like, well that didn't work, but I'm gonna kick back to your workspace card. So, it's kind of interesting strategy wise,

Liam: When you've got a com, a company card attached to your cap, you go, that was mistake.

Devin: Suddenly you've gotta explain to your boss, so why you need to pay off this receipt for, for an app purchase in your game. So, but it's just an interesting like, you know, flip side of that sort of, one size fits all versus a customized thing is they already have that pool of cards potentially in the Google Pay, whereas, you know, and that's more of a subscription kind of thing rather than in an that purchase thing. But it is an interesting sort of like flip side of that.

Liam: No it is, it is definitely. And I think, I mean it brings onto an interesting point and it, and again, this is where. You know, for, for, for tab particularly, obviously I talk about tab in, in this example where we want to make sure that everybody wins, right?

You know, when we say everybody wins, we genuinely mean everybody, you know? We are here as an extension to the studio. We are here to have the studios back. You know, this is why we have things like, you know, charge wrap protection. You know, if as, as the merchant record, if we sell something and there's a chargeback, we don't take the money from the studio, the studio keep their money.

Like we've already bought that content from the studio. They have that, that is rightfully theirs. We take the hit, and that will always be the case. We're never gonna, we're never gonna move away from that because we want to do what's right by the studio, but at the same time, we want to do what's right by the players as well.

So, you know, one of the things that we do, and yes, okay, you have to do this in certain regions, but we do it across the board because we think it's the right thing to do, is we will say three days before a subscription's due, hey. This subscription's due, this is how much it's gonna be, this is where we're gonna be taking it from.

You know, if, if you've got, you know, if there are concerns, there are problems, you know, let us know. Here's a button to manage it, whatever. And actually as much as, you know, the short term thinking can sometimes be, yeah, but I want that subscription. I'd rather they realize after the subscription. That, that classic thing. And, and less so in, in kind of Europe. But I know in the States, and I've had subscriptions in the States where it's like a 60 step process to, to cancel a subscription or something. You know, I think it has always been more natural for it to be easier in, in Europe. Right. But, you know, we see that because, okay, there might be a short-term revenue loss, but you've kept them as a fan.

You know, I've, I've had subscriptions where it has taken me so many times I've had to, you know, make an international phone call to an office in the States to cancel something or whatever, and it's like, I'm never using that product again. You could not pay me to use that product. I am done. They are dead to me.

Whereas making it easier and making it kind of painless, they're still a fan. Of you, of your studio, of your game. Yeah. Maybe it's just a temp thing. Maybe it's like, actually, you know what, Christmas is coming out. I've got a bunch of gifts to buy. I, you know, I, I can't do it this month. I'm gonna re jar you, make it difficult.

And they go, that's it, I'm done. I'm gonna find a, so that whole, you know, doing right by the player as well actually is the best thing for the long-term partnership and the long-term kind of relationship between the game and the studio.

Devin: Yeah. As a, as a personal anecdote that kind of supports what you're saying, especially about the reputational hit and things like that In terms of goodwill, I noticed so, a lot of Black Friday deals come out for things that tend to be subscriptions and they don't tend to resubscribe you at the Black Friday price.

They'll resubscribe to you at the full price. Right? So on Black Friday I got hit with multiple charges from things I had done the previous Black Friday and forgot about. And I was having to write a lot of emails so I didn't try and bother with their normal process 'cause they'd already charged me because they didn't give me the heads-up notice that you're talking about.

So now they're gonna have to deal with the potential backlash of that. And so, I'm emailing all of them like, Hey, you guys charged me. I, you know, I like your product, but I can't purchase, you know, I can't afford it right now. Especially since you've charged me full price. Like, you know, please refund me and cancel it and, you know, then I will definitely keep you in mind as soon as I can afford it again.

Luckily most of them were good about it and in doing so and, and refunding it promptly and not dragging me through the bottle of muds, I'm like, okay, I probably will consider, you know, resubscribing to them. Had they dragged me through the mud, it would've been like, you guys will never see my money again.

Yeah, exactly. And so, I do think that does matter in that, especially if they're hoping to get full price and not a Black Friday purchase again. I think that does, does, does make a difference. But it is interesting with those sorts of situations where a lot of prescript tend to come with a, a first time discount that doesn't renew.

And if you don't give a heads up on that, you're really kinda asking for, for some backlash.

Liam: Yeah. And, and, and this is it. I think like, as I said from a, from a, one of the, the unique things, because obviously we're based in the UK you might have guessed that, you know, we are used to this kind of slightly more regulatory heavy, I suppose, kind of EU kind of, this has ha this is the right thing to the, the right way to look after consumers.

And like that has its pros and cons. You know, GDR was a ma, as much as it is a great thing now, it was a massive headache for everyone when it happened. And so, you know, I guess in some ways for us it's kind of second nature a little bit. It's like, well no, of course we, you know, we're not here to screw players over just as we're not here to screw a studio, you know, we are here to, to make sure everybody.

Benefits and kind of wins in this relationship. And so, yeah, so for us, it's, that's one of our, very much our guiding principles. It's like we are gonna do what's right by, by everyone, because that's how you build a long standing kind of loyal player base, not a, you know, I'm gonna play it for five minutes and then drop it for the next thing.

Devin: Makes sense. You know, when it comes to, to a lot of changes you've seen over time, obviously you guys have been around since you know, this, this early stage of like Minecraft support and things like that, building into a more robust thing, and studios are kind of having to go through some of that evolution themselves, right?

As this becomes more of a thing, become more of a legal option as well. What, what kind of advice or, or, or thinking would you want to give studios for sort of future proofing or thinking about the future of this stuff? Because it's probably not the end of changes, right? Like this, this stuff will continue to evolve for better or worse, especially if somehow crypto gets involved and gets even crazier.

But I just mean like, how, how would you advise studios to think about this, to approach this to. Prepare for other potential changes and maybe even backpedaling and going back on this stuff.

Liam: Yeah, so one of the things that I say a lot, and I say it also to our kinda UGC, our game servers, is don't think in terms of products and bundles and packages.

Think about the ecosystem because you're right, you know, even within, like, let's say that DTC states, we know that in Europe for example, next year, there's almost certainly gonna be new rules around like loot boxes and that whole mechanism, you know, there's always been, there's already been pressure, right?

You know, a few years ago here, impacts change there so you can see what was in the loop box, et cetera. That's going to change again. Like these things are gonna continue to become more kind of paired down and regulated. So, if you kind of build your whole strategy around what you're going to sell, that's where you are going to come unstuck, because the minute that changes, you have to change your entire model.

Whereas if you think ecosystem, you think actually players being involved in and kind of UGC and games as a platform and how can we use this IP in new ways and how do we build a loyal player base and a loyal fan base so that actually it doesn't, to a degree, it doesn't matter what the specifics that they are buying up 'cause they're, they want to support us. They want to buy. Whether it's, you know, whether, whether it's kind of new, kind of new pets that have no impact on gameplay, whether it's, you know, kind of coins for a particular, you know, mini game or whether it's an XP boost or whatever it might be. They want to support us.

They love our game. They understand that for us to keep doing this, we have to be viable. And that's kind of building that ecosystem and, and that kind of, that play base and that fan base is, is really, really important. The other thing that I will say is just, you know. A lot of times studios will go, well, we'll worry about what's happening now and we'll worry about the future in the future.

And I get it because there's a lot of moving parts. You get to, you know, you get to crunch time. It's like, this has gotta get out the door. There are investors, there's publishers, there's, you know, whatever. I get it. But be aware that you kind of have to look at what's on the horizon. Gaming is global and that the fact that the gaming is global is the very best thing because it means you have this such a diverse and wonderful player base of people that are enthusiastic and love what you do.

But at the same time, it means you are exposing yourself to global tax. You exposing yourself to global consumer regulations. You are exposing yourself to, you know, players who have different expectations. We, we had an interesting story recently where, um, we had feedback personally at Tebex that players in Thailand who didn't feel or didn't, didn't enjoy our support process. And so, we did some research into this. We were like, okay. And, and a lot of com a lot of companies would be like, oh, it's, it's one country. It's, it's works everywhere else. We're not gonna worry about it. And we're like, no, we want to get to the bottom of this.

And what we actually, we did a, a, you know, kind of a bunch of research. We spoke to people we know and, and obviously we had friends that are kind of Thai nationals and things. And, and we, we reached out to them and it turns out that in Thailand, they do not want any pleasantries. They just literally want, here's my problem, here's the response.

Done. That's that. Like, we thought we were being, like, we were doing what we'd normally, we were kind of, I guess, overserving in a way and being really pleasant and, and you know, kind of being like really supportive in the way that we do, you know, we want to be supportive. We want to look after every single player on, on that, use it, that buys something from Tebex.

But we, because of their expectations were different, we were missing the mark. And so, we kind of went and actually we, we took a time and understood their expectations and their needs. And now how we handle those, those requests now is very, very different. So this is the great thing about it, right? But the challenges, like I said, are around, you know, like I said, understanding your global tax exposure.

You in the States, for example, you know, you, you, you don't collect sales tax. You hit Nexus in like, say Texas, which is 200 transactions. They could be $201 transactions. You still hit Nexus. And they can look back, I think it's like seven years and the penalties will be 200% of the tax amount and they charge you interest.

It's like, it's crazy scary. Like you, you only getting into that. So actually looking ahead and kind of seeing what is on the horizon, and get advice, you know, whether that's, you know, whether that's an accountant, whether that's a specialist tax authority, whether that is a merchant record. You get advice on those things, understand what consumer regulations are in those other markets, understand what the tax exposures might be.

And make sure you've got that flexibility. As we talked about, you know, cards and PayPal. Great in, in North America, great in most of Europe, but even in, say, Europe, like in the Netherlands, picks for us is 68.5% of all transactions. That's like a bank to bank method. In Germany, cards are like, it's sub 10%.

I don't, I can't remember these. I think it's like eight point something, but it's sub 10% of payments in Germany on cards. Everything else is wallets. So some of that's PayPal, some of that's well used to be so forth and is now Klarna. But it's very much those that they, they don't use cards. Brazil, another brilliant example, you know, even three or four years ago, Beto, over the counter payments was the thing.

And everyone's like, you know, Brazil's always gonna be a cash first society. Everyone's gonna go to their, the, the, the, the local place and pay for their Beto in a few short years. Picks is like 90% transactions. And I think we see like two Beto transactions. Yeah. It's just, it's completely, you know, exchanged.

But you have to be, know what's on the horizon and know these things are coming. Because otherwise you'll suddenly find when this shift happens, you know, if 10% of your player base is in Brazil and you are not offering picks, you've just lost 10% of your revenue. So, you have to be on top of these things.

Devin: Well, speaking of being on top of things and the horizon, what do you personally see, say over the next two years? I don't wanna go too far. Five years was originally gonna ask and I'm like, this changes way too fast to ask. Five years. Just in the next two years since legislation does take time and things like that, what do you see kind of coming for?

Obviously not like, hey, absolutely, you know, this is where the puck's going, skate there, but you know, things to keep an eye on.

Liam: At the very least, I think, and I think actually the, the proposed settlement from in, in the states between Epic and Google is, is the first hint. And so, I think, I think we will see kind of a more unified.

Like standardized set of this is the expectations. You know, we've seen it in other industries before. You know, oftentimes the US you know, will set a, a standard on something and a lot of the world will align to that. You know, we see it in, in air travel for better or worse. We see it in, you know, various other industries as well.

So, I think that's what we're gonna see. I think, as I said, I think we are collectively coming to the realization that Google and Apple aren't just gonna say, okay, we're not gonna take any fees anymore. Like, that's not going to happen, like just categorically. So, I think we recognize that now. I think, you know, from this settlement, I think that's the wake up call that everyone kind of was waiting for to go, well, okay, I don't think they're gonna end up at that tier.

I think it's quite clear that, you know, the, the judge in that case has turned around and said, well, I think maybe we need to look at this again. But, but that fee is going to be that, and I think we will see, you know. Some of these other countries, like I said, India, apparently kind of, their kind of economic. I can't remember the name of the, the, the department, the economic like Fairness that the Fair Trade Commission are looking at it right now.

Same in Brazil. Obviously Australia have ruled that what Google was doing was unfair, but they haven't set kind of the, the, the repercussions for that yet. So, I think what we are gonna see is once the US kind of has more clarity, I think we will see a lot of these other countries align more closely.

The EU may do its own thing because it's the EU and they always do. But I think broadly we're gonna see that align. And so I think at that point, again, all the things we've talked about, the narrative of this save 30% isn't gonna apply. It's gonna be, this is how you grow that loyalty, that LTV. And I think that's what we will see.

I think we're gonna see a lot more cross-platform games, SA platforms, as I talked about lesson that I'm really excited for over the next few years. , You know, we, we are already seeing examples, you know, Arc is a really good example. And obviously saying that, that obviously I know closely because te, OUL and Tebex worked a lot on it, that it was the first game that allowed kind of real, kind of third party moding in an official capacity that took a hell of a lot of work.

You know, working with Sony, working with Microsoft to do these things was really, really, a little work and to get them on board and understand this is how, this is how mods are gonna be cooked, this is how mods are gonna be distributed, this is how we're gonna ensure that they're not gonna cause problems with those consoles because those ecosystems are very tightly controlled.

But this cross platform, you know, PC, mobile console and UGC kind of games as platforms, ecosystem and this shared economic model, which is, like I said, you know, something that, that we've been doing a lot. And, and I definitely see that being a key factor in the next kind of iteration of gaming over the next kind of, yeah, the next two years, but also the next five years as well.

Devin: Cool. Well, hopefully the good parts at the very least are, are accurate. Well, we'll see. As you said, like a lot of stuff needs to get settled and then percolate across the globe, like you said. Exactly. The global part is both good and bad. Right. And everyone will probably do things maybe slightly different, but hopefully enough that people can manage. But that's where you're here to help, right? To help people kind figure that out.

Liam: Yes. And, and this is where e exactly. And, and again, I mean GDR again is a good example of that where, you know, the EU have their GDP DPR thing and then, you know, in the US there's obviously more fragmented, but certain states have their own data protection things, which some of them are kind of akin to GDPR, some of a little bit different.

Canada has its own thing, which has been kind of considered par, GDPR, but it still has its nuances. Australia's is a bit different. Again, obviously the UK post Brexit, we've decided do our own thing as well. So, you know, and, and this is exactly that, that keeping on top of all this stuff is. It's a lot of work.

Yeah. This is why Tebex doesn't build games, right? We wouldn't, yeah. I would love to. I'd love to be able to build games, but I, I wouldn't have the time. And, and we have a fantastic team and a, and a really big team of people that their entire life is like, okay, what's going on with the horizon? What's the next thing?

What's the next thing in regulations? What's the next thing in data protection? What's the next thing in consumer protection? What's the next thing in, you know, all of these different things in payments and, and everything else? Because that's, that's what we can do. We can support studios and we, you know, as I said, we, we, we think of ourselves as the, the in-house team.

You never have to hire because we are always there kind of having kind of the studios back and be like, Hey, this is the next thing. We've got it. You don't need to worry about it. You carry on doing, doing your, your great thing. You carry on bringing the magic. We'll deal with all the nuts and bolts. And I think that is, you know, having someone, whether it's in-house, whether it's.

You know, a merchant record, like having someone who literally is there to keep on the nuts and bolts and, and be on, be ahead of the curve on that stuff means that you don't have to stress about it. It doesn't have to keep you up at night. You can be like, Hey, we've got this brilliant game. Let's keep doing this.

Let's keep building that audience. Let's keep building that fan base. This is the thing that we do. You deal with the nuts and bolts. And that I think works really well.

Devin: Nice. Well, we just gotta keep on doing what you're doing then. Well, we're gonna, we're gonna wrap things up with just a quick rapid fire set of three questions here.

Feel free to be controversial, spicy without having to explain yourself, just to keep it interesting to, you know, make it, make it worth listening to the end here. But, uh, we're just gonna, we're go the over those real quick. First one being, and this doesn't have to be a Tebex one, but, you know, feel free.

The best implementation of a web shop you've seen personally. It doesn't have to be recent, but just in general. The ones like this is, this is a solid web shop.

Liam: I am the easy topics ensemble. But Dawn of Ages by Boom Bit mobile game, you, the experience is so seamless. You really don't know that the difference.

I have very little to do with it 'cause I have no artistic talent to save my life. But the team that did, you know, you genuinely don't dunno the difference between game and, and web shop, which is awesome.

Devin: Nice. Well, the, the, the flip side of that biggest mistake, you constantly see web shops making the one that's like, come on guys,

Liam: Let's see, I've got two, I dunno which one to use.

Okay. Treating web shops is a discount channel. This is the thing, 'cause again, we talked about retraining players and everyone goes, Hey, we're gonna take, you know, 25% off of all our products on the web shop. Okay? So, you've just lost margin. You can build the play base. Great. Adding value instead of discounting, is, is the big thing, you know, unique, you know, unique experiences that you can't get.

Kind of in game, same things as we talk about on Black Friday. But yeah, treating web shops as a discount channel, not premium channel. Biggest mistake I ever see. And it makes me cry every time.

Devin: Nice. And outside of the, the sort of Google vs Epic and Epic vs Apple and all that, is there any pending lawsuits or legislation or just anything in that sort of realm that you think will have a big impact? That you like a specific one as opposed to just like the broader shifts?

Liam: Yeah, I would say kind of the EU ramping up enforcement of the digital markets act. I think, you know, and, and the other ancillary bits around loop boxes and things that are all being tacked onto that, I think that's gonna have a big impact because for most interests, the second biggest market after North America.

So, you would then get to thing, do we build two experiences or do wees experiences around the, the most strictest implementation?

Devin: Yeah, I guess we had the whole thing that Supercell was pushing back against too, with the whole like, getting rid of micro transactions altogether. What? Like We'll, we'll see where things go with the EU. Who next to kick around?

Liam: Well, sup supposedly it's, yeah, hopefully it's gonna work for, for old school scape.

Devin: There you go. That's, that's the only thing that matters. Right? Most support old school for a reason. Cool. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you stopping by here, Liam. Definitely a lot of cool stuff going on, a lot of shifting in the industry, which you guys are hopefully staying on top of, it sounds like, day to day basis at this point.

So, I, I imagine we'll speak to you guys in the future here as well and be like, what, what were we thinking back then is so different now.

Liam: So, we'll see that, that, that didn't age well. Yeah, exactly.

Devin: Exactly. So hopefully your predictions were at least hedged enough to just to, to kind of be correct. So, we'll see. Fingers crossed. Yeah. But thanks again for, for some bite and I really appreciate it. And, and of course to the audience as well for, for tuning in, hopefully to the entire episode here. And we'll look forward to catching you guys on the next one. And in the meantime, enjoy the new year.

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