Selling directly to players through a web shop instead of sticking to the app stores has multiple benefits. One of the biggest is saving the 30% commission fee that Apple and Google take on every in-app purchase. With a web shop, you can avoid this fee and pocket more revenue. A web shop also gives you access to valuable first-party data, like email addresses. You can then use this info to run more effective and cost-efficient UA campaigns. Lastly, unlike app stores, web shops let you engage with players on a deeper level and broaden your IP universe because you can get greater control over the entire experience. The web is a more flexible medium, letting you take actions on your shop like offering bulk discounts, establishing a loyalty program, and creating an engagement hub of non-commerce content (e.g. lore, blog, web series). Explore even more advantages here.

There are three key steps to getting your game integrated with Stash Web Shop. First, set up account linking so you can identify players and award them the correct items. Second, prepare to process purchases by creating an endpoint on your backend for authorization that Stash will call every time players make purchases. Third, configure your catalog - with Stash, you can operate a unified catalog through an API endpoint that dynamically updates item assets, the products available for a specific player, purchase limits and rules, and time availability. Check out our documentation on Stash Web Shop integration here.

Loyalty programs are usually tier-based and tied to spending on the web shop. The more that players spend, the higher their loyalty tier. There are a few types of loyalty benefits you can offer on your shop that give players more rewards and bonuses as they progress through the tiers - these encourage both higher spend and greater engagement. These include tier-based discounts, bonus point events, custom avatars and icons, reward points, and birthday gifts. Huuuge Casino, for example, has a seven-tiered loyalty program that includes benefits like reward multipliers, personalized offers, and even a personal account manager for those in the VIP tiers.

Stash offers the ability to create an engagement hub for your webshop. This non-commerce feature holds content like lore, web series, blog posts, and interactive elements. Together with commercial incentives, this tool can encourage greater engagement, loyalty, and retention as it helps expand your brand’s universe.

With machine learning, Stash is able to show the most appealing offers to players to maximize LTV and retention. Using in-game data and player profile information, the ML model is able to determine their likelihood of purchasing (low, medium, and high) and show discounted offers based on this bucket. Through reinforcement learning, the model keeps improving its strategy based on the effectiveness of each discount offer and purchase decisions of players.

Because Stash plugs into your game’s servers, designing a web shop with Stash lets you fully replicate the in-game store experience: all of your offers, visuals, and the overall design are dynamic and customizable. You control how you list and categorize your products, including setting prices, managing inventory, and organizing sales and promotions - the same way you would do with Apple and Google.

A web shop gives you access to first-party data, like email, that you can use for your UA campaigns. Players need to connect their user IDs or create an account to use the web shop and ensure their purchases are transferred in-game. Since this account creation includes user identifiers, you can then use this information to create lookalike and retargeting campaigns. This is especially useful in a post-IDFA environment where user-level identifiers are much harder to access and collect - yet are still valuable for running targeted and effective UA campaigns. 

There are many strategies you can use on your web shop to encourage higher spend, retention, and engagement. Stumble Guys by Niantic offers creator codes that players can get from their favorite influencers/creators, then redeem at the shop for a reward, like a discount or limited-time bundle. Scopely’s Marvel Strike Force runs a milestone offer tied to purchasing/spending on their web shop, such as collecting Web UPCs. A Party in My Dorm from Thinking Ape has tiered subscription offers, offering additional in-game and web-based bonuses based on tier. And Heart of Vegas from Product Madness has a chained offer, rewarding players for purchasing the Premium Bonus then giving additional coins to those who purchased and return daily. Other examples of advanced web shop offers include bonus rewards tied to loyalty tier, volume-based discounts, and buy-one-get-one offers.

Stash is here to help beyond building and launching your web shop. We offer our expert insights, best practices, and tips around discounts and offer strategies to drive more traffic to your store and maximize conversions. From our blog containing helpful articles on this topic and more, to our extensive documentation that includes technical info alongside best practices, there are extensive resources at your disposal. We also have live chat, email, and online meetings to support you in optimizing your web shop strategies or answer any other questions you may have. Talk to us if you want to learn more!

You can analyze web shop performance directly in Stash Studio. Here, you’ll get access to a variety of reports and visualizations, including transaction summary, geographic breakdown, checkout analytics, product performance, and webshop analytics. Web shop KPIs are also included here, like gross revenue, LTV, AOV, and chargeback rate. The idea is, your entire webshop performance is easily accessed, viewed, and shared from one place.

There are many benefits to distributing your game through a white-label game launcher. Most importantly, you avoid the 30% fee that Steam takes on all sales, meaning you keep more revenue in your pocket. Second, you get access to first-party player data like email addresses, which you can use to improve your marketing strategy. Finally, because you have more control over the environment, you can create deeper relationships with your players and increase their engagement - for example by incorporating social discovery features, rewards programs, user generated content, matchmaking, and more. See more advantages here. 

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The best pc game launchers are what we call all in one game launchers. They offer users more than a download button, and beyond distribution, also offer engagement and monetization. For example, they have built-in social and community features, such as forums, matchmaking, guides, fan contests, and more. The best game launchers also let users purchase items at a discount and enroll in loyalty and rewards programs.

The best gaming launchers use a mix of social, community, and engagement features to attract players and keep them coming back. This includes storytelling and lore, news and updates, matchmaking, friend lists, chat, forums, and loyalty programs. For example, RAID: Shadow Legends, offers the Plarium Points Program in their game launcher Plarium Play; Activision Blizzard’s battle.net offers cinematics, announcements, and creator partnerships; and Ubisoft Connect offers a dedicated newsfeed to check friends’ achievements, personalized tips and video recommendations, leaderboards, and rewards.

Your a white-label game launcher is critical to building up your game community - since it serves as the ultimate destination to both play your game and connect with others. You can deepen community engagement by incorporating friend lists, built-in chatting functionalities, and game forums, and encouraging players to create and share user-generated content, like mods, custom maps, fan art, and gameplay videos. Reach out to us for a full list of community features you get with Stash.

There are two ways to distribute your games using a game launcher with Stash. One way is to manually upload your game binaries to Stash Studio, which is our developer portal. To do that, upload a .zip file of your game build and select the game platform and executable (.exe for Windows and .app for Mac). The other way is to use the Stash CLI tool to automatically upload your game builds using a CI/CD pipeline. Once you’ve uploaded your binaries, Stash handles distribution, CDN caching, and incremental updates for your global player base. You can also choose to distribute your binary privately to your team members or a limited number of players to test your game before publishing.

Stash’s incremental updates feature lets you easily push updates and new content to your game launcher. Each time you upload a new game binary, Stash’s delta patching algorithm downloads the changes between the current version and the new version of the game. Only those changes are pushed to your users, allowing for faster downloads and less bandwidth usage.

Stash is both a Windows game launcher and a MacOS one - supporting both major operating systems. Stash is always compatible with the latest versions of both Windows and MacOS, giving your players a seamless game launcher experience. We release regular updates to maintain optimal performance and integrate new development tools. Whether you're developing for PC or Mac, Stash offers strong support and a developer-friendly interface.

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The system requirements needed to run the Stash game launcher is Windows 10 and above with amd64 (x64) binaries. Note that the ARM version of Windows is not supported for now. Meanwhile, the minimum macOS version supported is macOS 10.10 for both Intel and Apple Silicon - with  64bit binaries provided.

Yes! You can completely customize the look and feel of the game launcher - in fact, that’s best practice. That way, it feels like an extension of the game itself and part of the game universe you built. You can either choose from one of our templates, build a custom design yourself, or work with the Stash team to design it for you.

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You manage your game launcher in Stash Studio, which is our developer-facing portal. There, you can upload new builds, new patches, create game keys for early access, and get analytics on downloads and engagement. Learn more about Stash Studio here. Or, reach out to us to get access.

Stash offers a range of support services for developers using our game launcher platform. That includes comprehensive documentation, including API references, SDK integration guides, and best practices for distributing your game and optimizing game performance. We also offer direct support via live chat, email, and online meetings whenever you need and for whatever questions you have. Need help? Reach out to us here.

To create a custom gaming launcher with Stash, reach out to us here. We’ll be in touch and get you started!

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