Today Paymentwall released an SDK for the popular game engine Unity that enables developers to accept payments directly within their application. From the press release:
“We are very excited to release our Unity Integration to allow gamers to make in-game purchases in their local currency, and in their most preferred payment method,” said Jevin Tryon, Project Manager at Paymentwall. “As a result, game developers will be able to increase their revenue, and monetize their games all around the world, easily.”
The ability to offer different payment methods and manage in-game purchases will allow developers to reach different markets worldwide and maximize their revenue. This is especially important as the global gaming market is expected to grow at a rate of 9.4% annually, and reach a revenue of 107 billion US dollars by 2017, according to the 2015 Global Games Market Report from Newzoo. Through the Paymentwall SDK, Unity will become the most wanted platform among game developers. In 2015, the number of developers using Unity reached a million, as compared to 60,000 developers in 2014, said Unity CEO John Riccitiello.
The Unity Editor comes with an array of tools for creating and enhancing graphics, animation, as well as 2D and 3D physics for games through effectors and colliders. Editor also supports C#, JavaScript, and Boo to help developers optimize user experience. To save time on game development and updates, Unity’s asset store offers ready-made plug-ins, models, extensions and services; which now includes Paymentwall SDK.
Developers will be able to level up the gaming experience through Paymentwall SDK. Their end-users can now pay for in-game purchases in a manner that is most convenient for them. The SDK also supports customization of the checkout page to reflect the look and feel of the game itself, contributing to a seamless user experience. Fraud protection and risk monitoring services are also part of it, to ensure safety for both end-users and developers in every transaction.
Example of Paymentwall’s one-click checkout page for Unity
Unity developers will be able to increase their revenue with Paymentwall SDK, while providing their users a better experience within their games. The creation of Paymentwall SDK for Unity makes the game development platform an all-in-one solution for both new and existing developers that seek to earn money from their games.
This is actually different than the myriad of In App Purchase plugins out there, as ultimately IAP make use of the underlying store (Steam, Google Play Store or Apple Store) for processing the payment, while in this case PaymentWall is the processor. I would actually be somewhat shocked if Apple would allow this past their terms and conditions given their previous attitude towards transactions done on the AppStore (AKA, they want a 30% cut of everything, from app sales to Netflix subscriptions or Amazon purchases). In fact, I am almost positive that neither Google nor Apple would allow you to use this SDK with their app store, making this desktop only. I suppose this system could be effective for people directly selling a game they want to monetize in app purchases on.
Paymentwall started life in 2010 as a way for developers to monetize Facebook applications, until Facebook effectively shut out outside providers a year later. The name seems a bit odd to me, as I had always associated the expression “Pay Wall” as derogatory.