Skich hatches plan to be "Steam for mobile gaming"

• Skich CEO and co-founder Sergey Budkovski discusses how the company has no plans to offer paid features or ads.
• While direct-to-consumer strategies offer lower fees and higher margins, "commissions alone are not a game changer", he claims.

Regulators and court battles around the world have been steadily prying open the App Store and Google Play for years now. Examples include the Digital Markets Act in Europe and the Epic Games vs. Apple ruling in the US.

The most notable beneficiaries making the business headlines are the direct-to-consumer companies - particularly with US App Store publishers able to, at present, freely link out to their own payment systems.

But it also presents an opportunity for alternative mobile marketplaces that have been restricted by walled gardens and scare screens.

Alternative discovery

Skich is one of the stores hoping to take advantage of the moment. The main feature is a Tinder-like swipe system for discovery that shakes up the more traditional app store layouts. It also offers expanded game categorisation with 240 genres - which it says is 14-times more than the App Store. That brings it more in line with offerings of market intelligence firms.

Other features include user-curated game lists - which sounds a bit like Steam Curators - as well as cross-platform social activity to see what friends are playing.

“We launched Skich Store to solve one of the biggest problems in mobile gaming: discoverability,” Skich CEO and co-founder Sergey Budkovski tells PocketGamer.biz.

“In traditional stores, players struggle to find new games while developers struggle to get visibility for their titles, and this gap is only widening as AI tools make game production faster and more accessible. 

“Our focus is on rebuilding the discovery process so that players can connect with the right games and developers can reach real audiences. At the same time, we give developers a market advantage with a commission of 15%, significantly lower than traditional stores.”

Budkovski says Skich wants to make its store more focused on interest-based recommendations rather than pay-to-rank visibility. We previously analysed how games marketplaces boost discovery here - with Steam claiming to have no promoted spots, while the App Store and Google Play charge for placements.

“Skich Store can be seen as the Steam for mobile gaming,” states Budkovski. “Our approach hasn’t changed - we don’t plan to add paid features or ads. 

“Only the player decides what deserves recognition and what doesn’t. Skich Store’s role is simply to introduce them to your game, and our recommendation system, along with all of our product features, does that seamlessly. 

“In practice, our model is closer to Spotify - we not only help players find what they already know they like but also introduce them to new genres and titles they might never have discovered otherwise.”

Gap in the market?

With the DTC revolution in full swing on mobile - with companies making anywhere between approximately 20% to 35% off the App Store and Google Play and providers taking cuts between 5% to 10% - do publishers really need new marketplaces?

It’s a tough proposition for competitors even as the playing field gets levelled - breaking user habits to use their own marketplaces while offering useful features and audiences a significant scale for publishers to break away. Which in the EU, they have been penalised for doing.

“I believe alternative app stores have a bright future,” says Budkovski. “Web shops give developers lower fees and higher margins, which is important, but commissions alone are not a game changer. 

“Web shops are good at helping developers monetise their existing audiences, yet they fall short when it comes to bringing in new users. Lower your price and you may attract thousands, but solve a real problem and you can reach millions. 

“The Skich Store tackles one of the biggest pain points in mobile gaming - discoverability - and that is our core value for both players and developers.

“On top of that, we focus on midcore and hardcore genres, where current stores do not serve players well in terms of discovery or functionality. Until now, they had no alternative, and that is exactly the gap Skich Store is here to fill.”

Growth opportunity

The Skich Store recently rolled out on iOS following its launch on iOS in March earlier this year. Budkovski says as an app, the company built a base of over 400,000 people. Its transition to a full-fledged store is a nascent one, though. Budkovski says more than 100 developers are bringing their games to the marketplace right now.

He adds that while all developments in opening up the app stores represent an important shift, the Epic Games vs. Google antitrust case in the US is perhaps the biggest for its own growth prospects.

After a judge ruled alternative stores must be allowed to be downloaded through Google Play, there’s an opportunity to improve performance marketing and simplify installations of marketplaces like the Skich Store on smartphones.

“In addition, Google is required to share the entire Play Store app catalog with alternative stores, helping to promote competition under antitrust regulations,” explains Budkovski.

“As a result, all alternative stores will have access to the same game catalog, and the one that succeeds will be the store that best understands player needs and delivers unique solutions.”

All of these regulatory and legal developments, Budkovski says, will ultimately benefit consumers. After years of battles with the tech giants, stores like Skich now need to prove that alternative marketplaces are worthwhile for consumers and publishers alike.