Direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales promise game developers a bigger share of revenue and a closer relationship with players. But getting that margin means taking on work and risks that storefronts such as Steam, Apple and Google have traditionally handled.
At GamesBeat Next 2026, industry experts discussed what holds studios back from embracing D2C revenue streams, and why the opportunity is about more than fees.
Moderated by GamesBeat lead news writer Alexander Lee, the discussion featured Liam Wiltshire, the general manager of Tebex, a sponsor of GamesBeat Next; gaming consultant Tadhg Kelly; and Dmitry Kachmar, the founder of Playgama.
Smaller and midsize developers often lack the specialist knowledge to assess monetization services, per Kelly.
“It tends to sound very maybe dubious to some folks, but honestly, just that it sounds like it requires a level of expertise that a lot of developers actually don’t really feel like they actually have,” he said during the panel discussion. “A lot of that is just education.”
The other major obstacle is discovery. Developers may want to escape a 30% platform fee, but worry that players will not follow them elsewhere. Kelly said studios still see major storefronts as where their audiences are. Steam, in particular, offers more than a place to buy games: “It’s also a social network. It’s also a community hub. It’s a review hub.”
That network effect makes alternatives difficult to compete with, even when they offer better commercial terms. Kelly said developers often see other channels as secondary because Steam already has a critical mass of playersm with Wiltshire adding that D2C should generally complement rather than replace established storefronts.
“No DTC platform, certainly no good DTC platform, would ever suggest don’t be on Steam. Would ever suggest don’t be on Google or Apple or whatever,” Wiltshire said, noting that studios might initially see around 15% of their player base use direct channels, with stronger monetization efforts potentially raising that share.
But a higher revenue share does not automatically mean a simpler business, according to Wiltshire, who said D2C providers have sometimes made the process unnecessarily difficult.
“D2C providers historically have almost intentionally made it complicated,” he said, pointing to commercial structures, repatriation fees and chargebacks. He described developers who had sold thousands of keys but still did not know what they would receive at the end of the month.
Kachmar placed the shift in a wider marketplace context, saying gaming is going through an evolution in which providers can help developers manage payments, traffic and other business operations. On discovery, he argued that studios should look beyond traditional storefronts and consider audiences across the open web, emphasizing the importance of learning quickly from experiments.
“The more relevant question is what’s not going to work,” Kachmar said. In the AI era, he added, “the problem is it’s not how to build the game; it’s how fast you are going to fail with all that stuff.”
The panel also considered whether D2C would lose its appeal if major platforms lowered their fees. Wiltshire argued that the value goes beyond the percentage a studio keeps.
“The much more impactful benefit of DTC, and and this is kind of what we’ve always talked about is owning that player relationship,” Wiltshire said.
That ownership does not mean studios must handle every operational detail themselves. Wiltshire compared D2C partners to outside marketing teams, arguing that providers work on behalf of developers.
“We’re not here to look good. We’re here to make the other person look good,” he said.
Ultimately, developers must weigh potential margin gains against discovery, administrative complexity and the value of existing platform communities. The strongest case for direct sales may be the chance to build a lasting connection with players while using partners to handle the business behind it.