Xsolla rolls out tools to keep players

Gamedeveloper · Diego Argüello · Aug 13, 2026, 3:16 PM

The commerce company wants to give studios more ways to drive repeat purchases.

Commerce company Xsolla has rolled out a new slate of tools for its publishing suite, all aimed at granting developers more ways to keep players engaged after the first purchase in their games.

Announced earlier today via a press release, the tools are centered around PC game studios strengthening the relationship with players after an in-game purchase. As such, the studio's direct channel built on the publishing suite runs alongside the platforms they already sell on, such as Steam and the Epic Games Store.

Xsolla says these tools should lead to better margins, first-party player data, and overall more direct control over a studio's own monetization calendar. In order to achieve these goals, the tools include a community hub, which is a studio-owned "engagement space" beyond traditional storefronts and apps like Discord. The hub can display news, quests, user-generated content, and referrals, with all player data staying with the studio.

Then, there's the live ops event template, introduced as a no-code template to run seasonal events and limited-time offers directly in the store. Studios can now also have dedicated merchandising experience for skins, outfits, and other cosmetics, as well as video as illustrations, using gameplay clips and trailers a product-page media instead of static images.

Lastly, there's now a notification system within the Xsolla Launcher for patch notes, events, and offers, centralizing communications without the need for third-party channels, as well as a self-service setup for "live-service and premium PC video game studios" with no custom engineering for standard integration.

"Storefronts put a game in front of players, yet they do not give a studio a direct relationship with them," Xsolla president Chris Hewish said in the announcement. "This release is about what happens after the first sale. The new store, Community Hub, and launcher tools give PC game studios their own channel to keep players engaged, on their own schedule, with the player data that comes from it."

Last year, Xsolla launched an SDK that enables direct-to-consumer monetization options for developers working on Unity, continuing its strategy efforts around the model. In October of 2024, Hewish, alongside senior VP of EMEA Chris Meredith, spoke at length against "gatekeepers," noting that it's an "awfully congested market" for developers. Without mentioning any specific examples or storefronts, the pair spoke about the idea of "democratizing the business of gaming" by allowing devs to sell digitally to players directly.

"For us, with the relationship with the advertisers bringing their products to market, we are very much aware of trying to put them on the track of the [direct-to-consumer] roadmap, and if you're a small three man developer, that's quite challenging," Meredith said at the time.

You can learn more information about the new publishing tools over at the official site.

Contributing Editor, News, GameDeveloper.com

Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist and critic from Argentina. Video games helped him to learn English, so now he covers them for places like The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, and more. He also runs Into the Spine, a site dedicated to fostering and supporting new writers, and co-hosted Turnabout Breakdown, a podcast about the Ace Attorney series. He’s most likely playing a rhythm game as you read this.

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Xsolla rolls out tools to keep players