How Mobile Developer Gamesture Shifted 70% of Game Revenue to Its Webstore

In the mobile games industry, discussions around direct-to-consumer (D2C) webstores usually focus on avoiding the standard 30 percent platform fees charged by Apple and Google. However, Polish developer Gamesture managed to shift the revenue split for three of its live social casino PvP titles from 32 percent to 70 percent on its webstore by treating the platform as a live product rather than just a payment portal.

Michal Korek, an executive advisor who helped Gamesture execute this transition, outlined the strategy ahead of his upcoming presentation at PGC Nordics 2026. According to Korek, simply offering the same in-game items slightly cheaper on a webstore only appeals to a small fraction of payers. To expand past this ceiling, Gamesture split its strategy into two major phases.

Phase One: Making the Store Worth Visiting

The first phase focused on improving the basic user experience and value proposition, raising the store's revenue share from 32 percent to 50 percent by December 2025. Analytics revealed that 71 percent of store visitors had never viewed the main page, and 99 percent of those who did clicked straight through to the games instead of making purchases. Gamesture implemented six key changes to address this:

• New main page: Rebuilt around per-game entrances rather than a general merchandising showcase.
• New loyalty programme: Introduced visible leagues and progress tracking to encourage repeat visits.
• Value bonuses over discounts: Replaced a 10 percent price discount with a 10 percent value bonus, keeping the fee savings inside the business while maintaining the same level of generosity for players.
• Calculable rewards: Changed the milestone reward system so players received easily understood, high-value gifts at thresholds of $10 to $50, replacing a hard-to-track system that triggered only every $200 spent.
• Better communication: Opened more frequent and effective communication channels both inside and outside the game.
• Auto-login: Removed password requirements to streamline the purchasing process.

Phase Two: Managing the Store as a Live Product

To push the webstore's revenue share from 50 percent to 70 percent by April 2026, Gamesture began treating the webstore as a live service with its own operational cycle, altering the offer architecture to encourage high-value spending.

Under this new live ops cycle, the webstore carried the entire in-game price ladder at all times, while the games only showed a rotating subset. Crucially, the highest purchase tiers of $250 and $500 were made exclusive to the webstore. Gamesture also raised purchase limits from one or two per offer up to five or 10, which Korek noted was one of the most profitable changes in the project.

Additionally, the team replaced generic "we have a store" advertisements with targeted in-game popups promoting specific, store-exclusive deals with direct links. They tested button placement across four variants, finding that a button on the main menu performed best. Finally, the entire store offer set was reworked event by event and week by week rather than once a year.

Leveraging Player Competition

Because Gamesture’s games are highly competitive, player guilds actively calculate the most efficient ways to win events. By placing the highest tiers and best value packages exclusively in the webstore, the optimal path to victory naturally ran through the store.

Korek pointed out that this strategy relies heavily on the competitive nature of the games. If a game is a relaxed single-player experience with lower spending depth, the webstore would instead need to compete on convenience and content.

"Your store isn't a cheaper till, and it shouldn't belong to whoever owns payments," Korek said. "It's a position in your game's economy and the question worth asking is whether the shortest path to winning runs through it."