Accelerating revenue in video gaming
Strengthen your payment strategy in line with industry trends
Accelerating revenue in video gaming Strengthen your payment strategy in line with industry trends
Video gaming is an ongoing source of entertainment and recreation. More recently, however, online games have become an excellent way for people of all ages to connect from afar and develop remote teamwork skills since the global pandemic. Now, the global video gaming industry is thriving, and player demographics are evolving. Game purchases, meanwhile, are no
longer the only transaction in the buying process. Today, digital game platforms are filled with subscription services, downloadable content and add-ons, as well as in-app or in-game purchase options for virtual items or game-enhancing experiences. Today, video gaming is more mobile than ever, the older gamer demographic is booming, gamers are crossing borders to buy limited
edition or pre-release products, and video game subscriptions are overtaking single game purchases. This means user expectations and needs, and payment technologies are shifting. If, as a publisher or merchant, you want to accelerate your growth in video gaming, here are four trends and strategies to work into your approach to payments:
Trend #1: Video gaming is mobile and multi-player
China and the US are the leading gaming markets worldwide. The UK, meanwhile, is the most lucrative and fastest growing video games market in Europe. It has the highest spending rates for digital game content, with 20% of the population playing games online.
During the pandemic, this trend became more prevalent; multi-player mobile gaming created community and a sense of wellbeing. Overall, with more than 90% penetration of smartphones in Europe, more than 30% population of Europe plays games online on their smartphones.
The in-app payments journey needs to create a seamless user experience to keep players engaged.
Playing multiplayer online games helped people feel less isolated during the pandemic
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Payment strategy 1:
Expand your payment methods.
The value of mobile wallet transactions will exceed USD 266 billion in the US and USD 60.5 trillion in China, the top two video gaming markets in the world.
Video gaming companies that are unable to accept mobile payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and AliPay risk creating customer friction-points that interfere with their conversion rates and revenue.
Check how many APMs your payments partner supports. If your partners’ limited scope prevents you from using methods your customers know and trust, those transactions are almost certainly lost. This can also lead to your customers’ card transactions being declined. Offering more payment methods can prevent lost sales.
Trend #2: Gaming isn’t just for Gen Z
Gaming is usually associated with teenagers, predominantly young males. However, since the acceleration of video gaming post-pandemic, the 45–64 age group is the fastest growing, accounting for 31% of all European players. Meanwhile, 53% of tablet and mobile players in Europe are female.
This could mean your players’ payment preferences are changing, too. Younger consumers prefer alternative payment methods and mobile wallets, whilst older generations may favour credit or debit cards, PayPal or bank transfer options.
Payment strategy 2:
Gain more control with Payment Orchestration
Complex, multi-vendor payment stacks are now an old-fashioned strategy. With a closer eye on your analytics and by assessing your customers’ payments data, you can optimize your entire payment stack to boost acceptance, increase security, reduce declines, and capture more revenue.
Removing the complexity of juggling multiple providers lowers fees, improves visibility, and unifies data streams
Check if your payment provider offers access to a control panel for real-time authorization and batch data broken down by card brand, payment method, geography. For best results, use a payment orchestration provider to manage and optimize your entire payment stack, boost acceptance, increase security, reduce declines, and capture more revenue
Trend #3: Cross-border game purchasing gains momentum
As the games market grows across the world, players are no longer restricted to buying games from their region only. The leading video game markets, China and the US, are also the world’s top cross-border with the UK.
This emerging behavior is becoming popular amongst players to access games that may be exclusive or released early in other regions. The seamless aspect of these purchases, as well as enabling a player to make purchases within the game, is driving cross-border innovation.
Payment strategy 3:
Work with a payments partner that has an extensive global acquiring network.
By developing a multi-acquirer strategy with a wide-reaching payments partner, video game companies and publishers can plug into different local acquirers across the globe.
Check your payment partner’s coverage. If the network is global, like ours at Nuvei, you’ll be able to accept all major debit and credit cards from customers around the world by leveraging connections to 200+ global markets and 47+ local markets.
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Trend #4: Subscriptions take preference over one-off purchases
In 2025, video game subscriptions are projected to generate 11 billion U.S. dollars in annual revenue, up from an estimated 6.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2020.
With changing consumer behavior, video gaming subscriptions for streaming services are increasingly popular, with console-based services like XBox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus seeing millions of subscribers. Gaming subscriptions are not only limited to console and PC, however — Apple recently launched its Apple Arcade for mobile.
Payment strategy 4:
Create secure, seamless recurring payments.
If your players are looking to make repeat purchases, or if you’re setting up a subscription feature, are you using payment tools like auto-retry and automatic account updating to capture more sales?
To reduce friction in the payment journey, a data security method called tokenization replaces credit card information with a token, a random value that retains the card’s essential information, without compromising security. Each token is linked to a single customer profile and can be used to complete a purchase transaction. As a merchant, you can safely process players' transactions while reducing the risk of having sensitive data fall into the wrong hands.
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Why Nuvei?
At Nuvei, we enable your players to revel in uninterrupted gaming without worrying that funding their enjoyment will slow them down. Offer seamless play with in-app purchases without compromising the data security of your players. Our network of acquiring partners gives you maximum flexibility to accept payments from the global gaming community virtually anywhere in the world, but on a local level.
Our platform is agnostic so we stand for choice, flexibility and customization — you don’t need to leave your existing provider, and our low-code approach means it is easy to implement through one integration. Our customers can tap into our global selection of over 600 alternative payment methods, global acquiring capabilities, and industry knowledge to build and optimize the best global or local payment mix. Our payment platform makes it incredibly simple for game publishers and merchants to respond to emerging trends and players' needs. We’re proud to work with the biggest names in the gaming industry. Learn more about payment innovation for your business at nuvei.com
“We discovered that in terms of localized payment methods, it is actually giving us a much higher payment acceptance.”
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*Sources:
Alex Tay Founder and CEO of ZeusX
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Global Data, Statista, ISFE, European Games Developer Federation
