Xsolla

Beginnings

Founded in 2006 in Perm, Russia by Shurick Agapitov, Xsolla (former 2Pay) was providing payment services via local payment methods (cash kiosks, prepaid cards, money orders and e-wallets). The company was initially targeted at Russian game developers and publishers. Having added PayPal and SMS payment options, 2Pay entered the CIS market and started its global expansion.

Growth

In 2010, 2Pay headquarters were moved to Sherman Oaks, CA. The company was renamed Xsolla, with its corporate image being designed by Art. Lebedev Studio, a leading Russian web design studio standing behind Yandex search engine, Alfa-Bank, Gazeta.ru, Lenta.ru and many others.

Prospects

According to Shurick Agapitov, over 50% of Xsolla revenue is to come from European and American game developers and publishers in 2014. Xsolla is pursuing it’s strategic goal to gain a significant market share in both European, American and Asian regions by providing new services. Xsolla assisted many famous game companies such as Perfect World In November 2013 to self-publish its latest game, Neverwinter, on the Russian market.

Payments

Xsolla works with over 700 payment systems worldwide, among which are credit and prepaid cards, mobile payments, premium SMS, e-wallets, cash, e-cash and bitcoin, and payment kiosks.

Along with global payment methods – such as Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, American Express, and PayPal – Xsolla offers hundreds of local payment options. Among them are local banks (Chase, Bank of America, U.S. Bank, Citibank, etc. in USA, Sberbank, Alfa-Bank, Russian Standard Bank, etc. in Russia, La Caixa and IberCaja in Spain, and so on), local mobile providers (T-Mobile and Vodafone in Germany, MTS, Beeline, MegaFon and Rostelecom in Russia, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint in USA, etc.), local e-wallets (Skrill, Neteller in Europe, Yandex.Money, QIWI and Webmoney in Russia, Cherry Credits and Alipay in China), Boku and many more.

Xsolla Network

The Xsolla Network is a user acquisition solution for game developers and publishers. The Xsolla Network reaches out to paying users from some of the largest internet media platforms in the world with zero initial investment. Once players convert to paying users, the developer/publisher will share a certain percentage of revenue generated from a paying user that was acquired from within the acquisition platforms. The Xsolla Network has a very flexible set of terms, which could be negotiated directly by the game developer and media platform.

Fraud management

Xsolla claims its fraud and chargeback management service to cover a wide spectrum of events, including chargebacks. Xsolla uses a combination of proprietary filters as well as some industry standard anti-fraud systems, which contribute a lot to establishing an effective anti-fraud filter. According to the most recent case study, the antifraud system of Xsolla showed a decrease in the percent of fraud from 39.6% to 0.6%.

Customer support

Another auxiliary service provided by Xsolla is customer support. Xsolla provides 24/7 customer support with multi-language services to global game developers and publishers. The Xsolla support team can be reached by creating a ticket, email, online chat, or toll free phone call.

Analytics

Xsolla offers a set of analytical tools for game developers, available in payment and game editions. In April 2015, Xsolla announced a free analytics package powered by Slemma, which helps to assess the game’s cost-effectiveness through Payment Analytics and Game Analytics.

Paystation 3.0

PayStation is an Xsolla tool adapted for different interfaces, including i-frame, for in-game use, mobile, tablet and full web usage. It features all payment options available through Xsolla sorted by country and type. The older version, Paystation 2.0, was demonstrated at the Los Angeles Convention Center during E3 in 2012. Paystation 3.0 is the latest version of Xsolla’s innovative storefront management platform tailored for video game content. With PayStation 3.0, developers can sell virtual currency, virtual items and premium subscription in one streamlined UI, and manage all settings from a single Merchant Account. Mobile Paystation 3.0 is the latest Mobile interface for in-game purchases. The solution is compatible with Android and browser-based mobile games. The mobile version of Paystation offers the same functionality as Paystation 3.0.

Xsolla Unity SDK

Xsolla Unity SDK is a billing and storefront management solution for video games developed on Unity 5. It offers in-game store management, sale of virtual currency, items, bundles, recurring subscription billing, localized UI, prices in different currencies, and access to all 700+ payment methods available through Xsolla, as well as various in-game sales and promotional tools. Xsolla Unity SDK is available through the Unity Asset Store.

Pay2Play

Pay2Play allows developers to sell their games and DLСs directly from official sites. It isn’t bound to any designated digital delivery systems or marketplaces. Developers can directly sell any game activation codes (Steam, Origin, uPlay etc) or even direct DRM-free downloads. Sales policy is completely up to seller. The settings on the Pay2Play widget can be managed directly from the Xsolla Merchant Account.

Xsolla eSports Academy

Xsolla eSports Academy was first announced on the 6th of August at Gamescom 2015. The Academy is a global esports education project, available to professional eSports coaches and eSports fans from all over the world, thanks to the global payment coverage provided by Xsolla. Xsolla eSports Academy supports a wide range of games, including DOTA 2, Counter Strike Global Offensive, SMITE, HearthStone, League of Legends and many others. An extensive partnership program is available to eSports enthusiasts willing to put the Xsolla eSports Academy white-label widget onto their web-page.

Coverage

Xsolla claims to have global coverage, with 100% presence in Russia and CIS and a strong presence in other regions. For example, in 2011, Xsolla focused in the Ukrainian market as it represents one of the fastest growing markets for the gaming industry in the Eastern European region.

The company expands its business portfolio by adding numerous payment systems (such as Skrill, Boku, PaySafeCard, Amazon, QIWI, Stipe,Braintree , Alipay, WeChat, MyCard, etc.) and game developers/publishers (Barbily, S2 Games, Valve, and many more) worldwide.

Criticism

Shortly before the 8th of April 2017 XSolla added, allegedly malicously, a flat 18% tip for all charges through XSolla, to XSolla from every charge. XSolla has so far not replied with any information as to why they would need a hidden tip merely for processing money, and have quietly changed it to 0% tip on default withing the scope of a few hours. Before the change to 0% there was direct complaints towards the companies using XSolla, leading Twitch.tv, Smite, MechWarrior, Chronicles of Elyria, Digimon Adventure, Realm of the Mad God and Dekaron, presumably among others, to force them to remove the charge for their direct ingame/direct subscription fees.