up to 20% of payments in mobile games went outside the App Store

Payments in games through the App Store in Russia, which can now only be made from the balance of two mobile operators, amounted to $172 million in 2023, which is almost 20% less than a year earlier. Market participants believe that a comparable volume of payments has begun to take place outside the scope of mobile applications, as well as in the gray zone – through payment systems built into them without Apple’s knowledge. Since October, the company has officially allowed developers from Russia to connect such systems to applications, but they must transfer a commission to Apple, and not all studios yet understand how to do this.

Kommersant got acquainted with the report on the mobile video game market for 2023, State of Mobile Gaming 2024, prepared by data.ai. According to its data, the volume of payments in mobile games made in 2023 from Russia through the payment infrastructure of the App Store decreased by 19.2%, to $172 million. The Russian Federation ranks last in the top 20 countries for this indicator: the United States is in the top three ($14.8 billion), China ($11.2 billion) and Japan ($8.4 billion).

The report’s authors compare countries with different sets of payment instruments available in the App Store. In all countries except the Russian Federation, the store supports card payments. Additional means, depending on the country, include payment from a mobile phone account, via PayPal and local payment systems (in China – Alipay, in South Korea – KakaoPay, etc.). In the Russian Federation, since March 2022, only payments from phone balances have been available, and since May 2022, only for MTS and VimpelCom. In 2021, the volume of payments in mobile games through the App Store in Russia was $336 million.

Payments on Google Play have been completely disabled since March 2022: the Russian segment of the Android store not only does not allow you to use its payment system, but also does not allow you to update purchased paid applications. Data on payments through Google Play, including historical ones, are not provided in the latest report from data.ai. According to the report for 2022, in 2021 their volume in the Russian Federation amounted to $715 million (9th place). In 2022, the Russian Federation was not included in the ranking; Mexico was in last 20th place with $222 million.

In October 2023, Apple allowed Russian developers publishing applications in the country to use third-party payment systems that allow payments to be made through web pages instead of the App Store infrastructure. Such payments, for which the developer must report to Apple, are subject to a commission from the American company: 27% versus 30% when using payments through the App Store.

The change in policy followed a trial with the Federal Antimonopoly Service that ended unfavorably for Apple: back in October 2021, it opened an antitrust case due to the company’s ban on informing about payment methods outside the App Store. In January, the FAS reported that Apple had paid a fine of 1.18 million rubles, issued to it in this case a year ago. Google, which has completely disabled payments through Google Play from Russia, has removed the requirement for the unalternative use of its payment system in the Russian Federation from August 2022.

The new optional agreement for developers in Russia was hardly the reason for the drop in payments, says Vasily Ovchinnikov, head of the Video Game Industry Development Organization: “Too little time has passed. The rule has not yet taken hold, and overall it is unclear how many developers have taken advantage of it.” According to him, the volume of payments through the App Store has indeed decreased due to third-party systems, but we are talking about systems connected without Apple’s knowledge: “Small developers, who are generally not subject to Apple’s scrutiny, have always been able to use this in practice.” Taking into account the white and gray parts of the market, the expert believes, the volume of payments from the Russian Federation could remain at the level of 2022.

Among the companies that allow mobile game developers to organize the acceptance of payments from the Russian Federation is Xsolla, founded in Russia and positioning itself as a company from the United States. In November 2023, after the Ukrainian publication AIN.Capital reported that Xsolla was continuing to operate in Russia, the company’s interim CEO Chris Huish told Axios that the company reserves the right for clients not to accept payments from the Russian Federation. In January 2024, the provider connected payment via SBP.

A Kommersant source at a Russian gaming studio says that his company has not yet entered into an additional agreement with Apple, because “there is no understanding of how to send money to Apple.” According to him, players have the opportunity to purchase in-game items through the web store, but the company does not place it in the application: “This is prohibited by the rules.” Google officially allows the integration of third-party systems, but at the same time, according to the source, it is more difficult to interact with it: “Russia has ceased to be a priority market for Google, so it has become more difficult with communications and getting into collections.”

Yuri Litvinenko