US outfit Chartboost is well-known for its cross-promotion and advertising technology.
After all, it's being used in over 16,000 games, handling more than 6 billion game sessions every month.
Chartboost Store is something different however.
"It's not a feature. It's a radically new product that's being operated by a separate team, " explains CEO Maria Alegre.
"Since we launched two years ago, I've been telling people we're building a monetisation platform for games, not an ad network.
"This isn't about the adverts. This is about the whole game economy."
Opening the doors
Of course, Chartboost Store isn't the first real-time in-app retailing solution; companies such as Playhaven offer similar services.
Alegre says Chartboost's game-focus means it can provide a more specialised product, however.
Additionally, there are strong synergies between Chartboost Store and its existing business.
"Now developers can use one platform look at the behaviour of the 98 percent of players who don't pay and the 2 percent who do," she says.
Chartboost will be rolling out future updates that enable developers to more easy see how players flow through their user acquisition campaigns into their games.
The big bet
"We're about providing game developers with freedom and control," Alegre states.
And putting developers' financial success to the fore, Chartboost Store will cost them a 10 percent share of revenue.
For some this will seem like a large cut; effectively reducing their net revenue to 63 percent of their app store gross.
Alegre is firm, however.
"We want the developers who use Chartboost Store to be making more money.
"We don't want them to use it for no reason, or despite it not working for them," she argues
Early adopter
But, if you're quick, you can get a better deal.
Chartboost is looking for around 100 developers to further develop the product, and it's rewarding them for their feedback during the closed beta period by waiving the 10 percent fee for 12 months.
"We've opened a bit early, because we're a product-driven company, and our priority is to build a great product before we fully open access," Alegre says.
Interested developers can find out more details here.
Gavin Bowman of Retro Dreamer, is one of five companies that have titles live using Chartboost Store.
"We're a small team, and building a backend service to provide the flexibility to make updates on-the-fly wasn't something we ever considered before," he commented.
"Working with Store has opened our eyes to the possibilities going forward, thinking about how we can run promotions and regular content updates in our future titles.
"We're already thinking different about building our games going forward."
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Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
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