In August, the G2A marketplace launched a program to work with developers and publishers, within which they were able to independently sell keys to their games. In conversation with App2Top.ru G2A business development specialist Dave Traeger admitted that in the future the platform also plans to promote the best projects.
Hi! Can you tell us about the first results of G2A Direct? We know that the program was launched this summer. What has been achieved during this time?
Dave Trager
Since the release, which took place a little more than a month ago, we have received more than 2.5 thousand applications from a variety of applicants [the conversation took place in mid-September as part of a press tour organized by G2A, now this figure is much more — 4 thousand, — approx.
editors] — from indie developers to major publishers.
As I know, G2A now pays developers a percentage of the games it sells. I didn’t have to do this before the initiative. Has the platform’s profit dropped after the launch of the program?
We cannot disclose the exact figures.
Developers like the program. Because in many cases it plays the role of an additional sales channel. Of course, it is not easy for them to understand the very idea of such a marketplace as G2A. This is a completely new way of doing business. The platform works differently than standard retailers. Therefore, people, when faced with it, have doubts. And the 10% that we pay helps developers to acclimatize, get used to the platform. So this money is an incentive that helps them understand the platform better.
As for profit, in a global sense, the program does not have a strong impact. Mainly because the game is not sold directly [with us], we act as a platform for a third party.
How is the final price of the game calculated? We take the price and add up to 10% to it, which goes to the developers. We don’t lose anything ourselves.
And what about ordinary users? Before G2A Direct, they just had a key, they set a price for it and sold it. But after the initiative was introduced, this price automatically increased. How did they react? How did those who do not want to give more behave?
If it speaks about the reaction we received from the key sellers, then it was predictable. Someone reacted negatively, someone did not bother at all. When someone sells keys, they are informed that the cost of the key will include a markup that will go to the developer. And he can set the price accordingly. And it will affect everyone who sells this particular game. So it helps to regulate the price, it does not jump either up or down.
I’ve heard that G2A Pay and G2A Direct together can help developers attract traffic. Can you tell us about it?
Sure.
Every store has problems with the visibility of games. G2A Direct has just launched now, and therefore it practically does not suffer from this yet. But new content is constantly coming in, and as soon as the number of games exceeds a certain limit, problems will obviously appear. So now we are trying to do everything to avoid these problems. Marketing, however, is not free. And that’s why we’re trying to come up with a plan that would allow us to promote games using the systems we have.
G2A has very powerful marketing mechanisms. When it comes to selling games, we are great at it. We would like to be able to sell absolutely all the games of each publisher and developer. But… it won’t be possible to please everyone. Otherwise, the system would stop working. So we need to find a way to successfully promote as many developers as possible. Therefore, everything now comes down to figuring out how we can do it. And what to start doing first.
For many, the issue of promotion is the most important.
In many cases, it turns out that G2A Direct has lower prices for games than in other stores. In order to get the most out of this, publishers and developers need to rely on G2A in terms of sales. And here everything depends on publishers and developers, on whether they will take advantage of this advantage or simply prefer to sell as sold.
But what exactly does it take to do this?
We haven’t decided how to implement it yet. Let’s say if we find a game that is popular and sells well, then, of course, we will begin to actively promote it. Otherwise, most likely, it will sell games in packs.
Like the Humble Bundle [a model in which a set of games is sold for the price that the buyer is willing to pay — approx. editorial offices]?
Not quite. We use the bundle as a marketing tool. We have a standard internal price for such packages. And it is quite high, because we understand our business. And in most cases, we can take a game that is not being bought and force it to be sold simply through marketing. So for those cases when the developer has sold a maximum of 100 copies on Steam for the entire existence of the game, we just need to find the right approach. And figure out what it will cost us. Perhaps in the end we will increase the commission, or start taking a percentage of the profit, or something like that. We are now looking for different options. In such cases, a thoughtful study is always required. Therefore, I can’t say anything concrete about this yet.
And should we expect that you will start conducting direct sales? Without keys?
What do you mean?
Not as a marketplace, but as a platform with direct sales. Like Steam. You will start selling exclusives to users.
Our marketplace is now just a tool for selling digital sub-content. We sell digital keys. Therefore, if we take the Steam model as a basis, then we will need to significantly redesign the platform. It will not be possible to implement this quickly. If we suddenly decide to switch to such a model, it will take a good couple of months for it to become at least approximately possible.
We have a lot of people working here at G2A. There are separate teams that come up with new business ideas. Therefore, several such ideas — about the development of the market — are constantly under development. I can say for sure that we want to add new tools to G2A Direct. But I won’t go into details yet.
I asked because content rules everything on many platforms. And if you have exclusives, then this is the best way to make the market better.
Sure. I completely agree with this.
Thanks for the interview.