Tebex's Liam Wiltshire: "New regulations quietly change who owns the player relationship"

Pocket Gamer Connects Summit San Francisco kicks off on Monday, March 9th, 2026.

The event brings together over 750 delegates for a day focused on the world of mobile gaming. Companies set to join the show include Tencent, Scopely, Jam City, Discord and many more.

One of the speakers set to join the conference is Tebex VP and GM Liam Wiltshire, who has been with the company for the past decade.

Tebex is a monetisation platform used by companies such as Rockstar Games and Take-Two, processing over $1bn in transactions to date. The firm operates as a full-service Merchant of Record, handling global payments, tax, compliance and fraud.

We caught up with Wiltshire ahead of the show to discuss monetisation, UGC and cross-platform gaming.

PocketGamer.biz: What's the most common mistake you see being made in the games sector?

Liam Wiltshire: A common and major mistake we’re commonly seeing in games is how studios go about acquiring players and selling to them.

Studios are relying on traditional platforms for selling and player acquisition. But we are all seeing the many ways that today’s age of gaming is not traditional. Games incredibly operate as ongoing platforms.

The games and studios that are excelling have adjusted for this change, identifying ways to build their communities utilising new channels of communication, supporting community by integrating mods and UGC from day one and not as an afterthought, as well as creating a strategy that prioritises control, trust and long-term resilience. 

They are adopting a player-first lens to meet players where they are and provide a delightful experience. Overall, a common mistake studios are making is operating within the restrictions of platforms and traditional games marketing, when they should be future-proofing their business and unlocking the freedom to build economies and communities that last beyond the current ruleset.

Where are the next big opportunities in the mobile games market?

The next major opportunities lie with player relationships and player-first economies
and experiences.

Modern games are clearly shifting toward player-driven worlds, community events and UGC-driven, circular economies. These games outperform purely transactional ones and they create space for community-led monetisation, creator-run servers and persistent economies that live beyond one game loop.

An example is on mobile, where you can build a model that extends the game experience and rewards outside of the app store, such as on Discord or through live events, and plug commerce directly into those environments with rewards, offers and experiences that align with community culture.

This demonstrates why D2C is powerful. It’s not because you can magically “save 30%", like so many say. It’s because new regulations quietly change who owns the player relationship, and they open doors to alternative commerce models around the world.

D2C experiences can be woven into discovery, player acquisition and engagement to give studios new ways to keep players discovering, returning and being monetarily invested in your game.

Studios taking advantage of the technological opportunities to operate through a player-first lens and prioritise long-term relationships are the winners. Those that are creating experiences that are short-sighted or oriented around single transaction experiences are increasingly losing in the market today.

What is the single biggest challenge facing the mobile games industry today?

The mobile games industry is grappling with growing operational and regulatory complexity, and studios are under pressure to do more with less.

Downsizing leaves less room for in-house experts to navigate different laws and consumer preferences across the US, EU and other regions when it comes to Android and iOS monetisation.

In this environment, the challenge is building flexible monetisation stacks that can adapt to fast-changing policies, regional fragmentation and live ops realities without derailing the core development of the game and the team’s limited resources.

Regulations change frequently and it’s a huge burden to adapt quickly - a burden that gets more complicated day by day.

That’s where D2C and the Merchant-of-Record model become critical enablers, and why Tebex handles payments, global taxes, compliance, chargeback insurance, support, and more.

This allows studios to focus on designing those player-first economies and long-lived platforms instead of struggling with the mechanics of evolving the monetisation that goes with it.

What key trend should we be paying attention to in the next 12 months?

One trend to watch is creator-run servers. These servers enable the popular trend of role-playing in games that were not designed with that element in mind.

We see this with RedM and FiveM in Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto. Players want to lose themselves in another world and server owners are making six-figure sums by creating the spaces for players to do so.

It’s a great example of how you can apply a live service-like model to your game to grow community and revenue, and it’s a trend entirely driven by the players themselves.

Another trend to watch is supporting UGC from day one. Hytale surpassed one million mod downloads almost overnight, going on to reach 20 million downloads.

The Hytale experience is married to the modding experience. The players are shaping the game's future and the ability to mod has propelled its popularity, revenue and community.

What are your thoughts on the cross-platform gaming trend?

Cross-platform and cross-device games are becoming the backbone of the industry’s most durable and valuable ecosystems. We see this with Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft in particular, but they are not alone.

When you go cross-platform, you allow consumers to fit your game into their lives in new ways. You also open the door for more flexible UGC and monetisation systems, since other platforms can support things like purchases that can often be carried over from platform to platform and linked to your account, and mods that open up new experiences and advantages.

And, rather importantly, you are putting your player first, extending the experience of feeling like part of the community and creating a sense of belonging. A game that’s doing this well right now is Wuthering Waves, a story-rich RPG that players can immerse themselves in on console, mobile, PC and streaming.

Additionally, cross-platform games, when involving mobile, open the door to growth markets like Mexico and Brazil. Studios can thrive in those markets when the games are accessible and when they support the way those players want to pay, like the local digital wallet Pix.

I think cross-platform games will play a major role in the future of successful studios, worlds and communities, becoming an essential element of the recipe instead of an optional one.