Google Play is shifting the way it implements chargebacks in 2026, and smaller mobile game makers could be feeling the brunt of the change.
In May 2026, Google Play updated its chargeback policy to require app developers to pay for most chargeback losses and provide more evidence to help fight fraudulent payment disputes. Previously, Google had generally absorbed chargeback costs for any purchases processed through Google Play. To accompany the policy change, Google also announced the rollout of a new Review Refund Application Programming Interface (API) today, July 1, giving developers the option to submit information such as whether a digital item was delivered, whether it was consumed or used, and other transaction metadata. Google Play has not provided a specific date for the launch of its updated chargeback policy, beyond announcing that it would be implemented at some point in 2026.
“With this information, Play can better identify and contest illegitimate chargebacks on your behalf,” Google’s official policy change announcement stated.
Google’s chargeback policy change — which impacts mobile app developers of all kinds, not just game makers — comes in the aftermath of Google’s legal battle against Epic Games, which resulted in a ruling that Google’s app store and payments system were illegally blocking third-party developers from operating storefronts within apps hosted on the Play Store. Putting the onus on app developers to cover chargeback fees allows Google to tighten up the potential profit margins of its Play Store business.
“All merchants of record are seeing the same thing — costs are going up everywhere,” said Liam Wiltshire, the general manager of the monetization platform Tebex, in an interview with GamesBeat. “There are always going to be situations where merchants of record find ways to distribute some of that financial risk in a different way.”
Google’s announcement framed its chargeback policy update as a bid to “align with industry standards.” Although putting the onus of paying chargeback fees on sellers is indeed standard in direct-to-consumer online sales, both Wiltshire and Chen Aspler, the director of payments and fraud prevention for the mobile payment platform Appcharge, said that this type of policy is not yet standard for in-app purchases.
“I cannot agree that it should be a standard,” Aspler said in an interview with GamesBeat. “It is a standard for the DTC merchants of record, but not for the Play Store.”
Not all mobile game studios are gearing up for Google Play’s chargeback policy update to have a significant impact on their business. My Perfect Hotel developer SayGames, for example, is not planning to change its overall approach due to the policy update. The company already validates purchases and keeps detailed transaction records, making it well-prepared to use Google’s Review Refund API, according to SayGames chief publishing officer Anton Volnykh in a written interview with GamesBeat.
“Chargebacks aren’t a meaningful factor for us,” Volnykh said. “They happen relatively rarely, and their impact on our transaction business is negligible. Like any publisher, we keep an eye on them, but they haven’t been a significant operational or financial issue for SayGames.”
The studios that stand to be affected most by Google’s policy change are the smaller studios that can’t afford to easily absorb chargeback fees. For some smaller developers, a few chargeback fees could make the difference between a profitable day and an unprofitable day. To protect smaller studios, Tebex has pledged to fully insure studios against chargebacks, covering admin fees, costs of defending disputes, and even refunds themselves if the case is lost.
“That could be the difference between your game being sustainable, or one bad month, where bad actors happen that you have no control over, completely destroying your game,” Wiltshire said.
Mobile game makers that want to protect themselves against the coming Google Play policy change should be focused on owning their own data, per Aspler, who cautioned developers against blindly trusting Google’s Review Refund API.
“If you’re not going to measure the results — if you’re not going to optimize it, if you’re not going to dedicate someone who will own it — you probably won’t recover most of the funds,” Aspler said.