After Epic Vs Apple, mobile game-makers are directing players outside of Apple’s walled garden much more aggressively. And they’re dodging that infamous 30% cut of all IAPs in the process.
Mobile game consultancy Liquid & Grit recently looked at 35+ examples of how exactly the likes of Supercell, Niantic, Playtika and more are selling IAPs directly to their players on the US App Store. The analysis followed May’s landmark US court ruling that effectively lifted all restrictions on IAP payments within the US App Store with immediate effect.
Liquid & Grit split these emerging best practices into four buckets: webshop offers in the game’s native IAP Store, pop-ups, buttons on the game’s ‘home’ screen and steering via in-game news and mailbox systems.
Naturally, of the titles L&G looked at, social casino games like Double Down Casino, Huuuge Casino and Gold Fish Casino were steering players to webshops most aggressively, deploying all four methods. Only one of the more typical ‘games’ in the cohort, Socialpoint’s Dragon City, was found to be using all four ways of directing players away from Apple’s payment systems and into its webshop.
From the titles it looked at, L&G found that the most common method used to guide players into a webshop was to offer a discounted webshop bundle within the ‘native’ IAP shop. It’s a technique used by games including PUBG Mobile, Pokémon Go, June’s Journey and Solitaire Grand Harvest, among many others.
Supercell’s way of directing players outside Apple’s payments systems differs per title, says L&G. Brawl Stars and Clash of Clans currently direct players to a webshop in their respective IAP shops only, while Clash Royale had links to the webshop in its IAP store plus an assortment of pop-ups guiding players to discounted offers on the web.
Zynga’s Empires & Puzzles, meanwhile, eschews messaging its webshop in the IAP store and instead uses all three of the other steering methods (pop-ups, a button on the game’s home screen and links in the game’s inbox).
Miniclip’s 8 Ball Pool, meanwhile, guides players to its webshop from the IAP store and through an in-game news feature. EA’s approach varies: EA-owned Playdemic’s Golf Clash pushes players to its webshop via its homescreen and in-game news feed, while Madden NFL has webshop links in its shop, in pop-ups and in its mailbox feature.
The L&G analysis also showed that every Playtika game it looked at – Board Kings, Caesars Slots, Slotomania, Solitaire Grand Harvest and June’s Journey – featured webshop offers at the point of purchase. These offer a choice between a more expensive App Store-native IAP and a cheaper, better value webshop offer to make the benefits of its D2C portal all the more obvious.
Board Kings, Caesars Slots, Slotomania and Solitaire Grand Harvest were found to provide 20%-25% more currency when payment is made through the web store, while June’s Journey provides more premium currency per dollar spent through its webstore.
But there’s no single set of best practices emerging just yet. From L&G’s research to date, though, the point-of-purchase pop-ups appears to offer the most natural userflow.
In another recent report on the major apps now going direct-to-consumer on the US App Store, L&G noted that the likes of Spotify, Twitch, TikTok and Disney+ each direct users off-store in slightly different ways.
That L&G report concluded: “Organisations with the in-house resources to build and manage websites should consider hosting their own web stores and using payment processors, such as Stripe, Adyen, or Paysafe, to handle card transactions.”
“Developers who don’t want to build their stores in-house may want to work with full-service web store providers, such as Xsolla, Stash, Appcharge, or Fungies, to get web stores up and running quickly. While these hosting providers generally charge higher fees than standalone payment processors, they still cost much less than Apple’s 30% cut.”
