Short answer: “Merchant of Record” tells you who’s legally the seller, not who pays when a dispute is lost – and as of Google Play’s 2026 chargeback policy change, that distinction is worth several thousand dollars a month to some studios. This breakdown covers what changed on Google Play, why Google’s new dispute tool doesn’t … Read more
There is no single channel that replaces linear TV for the 18–25 audience. Instead, five environments -in-game, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and Spotify – each capture a distinct slice of daily attention, and gaming is the category most planners still underweight relative to how much time actually lives there. Below is a structured rundown of each … Read more
A breakdown of why streaming and in-game advertising serve different objectives, and how to allocate budget between them based on audience mindset rather than reach alone. Media budgets are increasingly split between streaming video and in-game placements, and planners often frame the decision as a trade-off: pick one, defend the choice, move on. That framing … Read more
The real payoff of direct-to-consumer game sales isn’t the 25-30% in platform fees a studio keeps – it’s the direct player relationship that a webstore makes possible, which platform storefronts structurally cannot provide. This guide breaks down what D2C actually changes for a studio, what it costs to run properly, and how the main merchant-of-record … Read more
Gaming currently draws less than 5 percent of worldwide media investment while commanding daily attention that rivals or exceeds channels already treated as core spend. That gap – not novelty, not hype – is the actual case for adding gaming as a standing line in a media plan rather than a recurring test. This reference … Read more
Native, gameplay-triggered ad formats consistently outperform interruptive ones with Gen Z gamers – this guide breaks down why. Reaching Gen Z through gaming is one of the few reliable options left for advertisers, but it comes with a constraint most other channels don’t have: this audience is unusually fast to punish advertising that interrupts play. … Read more
Google Play Chargebacks Are Moving Onto the Studio P&L *For payments and compliance leads: Google Play’s August 2026 rule turns chargebacks into a studio cost. The answer is not better policy prose. It is evidence, captured before the dispute arrives.* ## TL;DR – After August 3, 2026, Google Play and developers share chargeback costs on … Read more