Mobile Game Gatekeepers Are Opening the Gates

I spend a lot of time thinking about a simple problem: there are more mobile games than ever, and it has never been harder for players to find the ones they will love. Top charts show the same handful of titles, and everything else is nearly invisible. If you shipped a mobile game recently, you already know the feeling.

This issue is why my co-founder Ivan Zenkovich and I started Skich back in 2020. It began as a small side project. We wanted to help players find games that actually fit them, not just the games with the biggest ad budgets. From the very first day, though, we had a bigger idea in mind. We wanted to build a real home for mobile players, one where they could discover a game and download it directly.

For a long time, the idea felt too new and a bit early. Two enormous stores controlled how games reached phones, leaving little room for anyone else. What changed my mind was watching the pressure build. Epic Games took on the gatekeepers in public. Antitrust regulators around the world started saying the same thing in their own way. It became clear that change was not a question of if but of when.

A rule change that finally opened the door

People often ask what Skich is. Some call it Tinder for mobile games, where you swipe and find your match. I prefer to think of it more like Spotify. Recommendations are only the start; we also give players game lists, a launcher, and social activity that works across platforms.

Skich runs on Android globally and on iOS in Europe. Until recently, that split came with a hard limit. The real challenge was never the technology. It was user acquisition. Getting someone to install a new store was unfamiliar, and on Android it felt a little risky.

Two things changed that in a matter of weeks. In early July, Apple lost its legal battle with the European Commission over the Digital Markets Act, which means we should see real change soon in how Apple follows the rules. Then, on July 22, Google Play in the United States opened its doors to alternative app stores. Players can now install them from Google Play with a single tap. Google Play also began sharing its full catalog with those stores.

That second change matters more than it might sound.

Discovery is Broken, and the Data Shows It

Mobile gaming has grown far past the roughly 20 genres the App Store recognizes. As AI makes games faster and cheaper to build, that number will climb, and the discovery problem climbs with it.

At Skich, we track more than 280 genres. Here is the part that surprised even us.

During onboarding, 70% of the genres that new players choose don't exist in traditional app stores.

Players already know what they like. The old stores just have no way to show it to them. That gap is the real opportunity, and it points to a part of the market almost everyone ignores.

I'm talking about the pre-release window. On our homepage, two sections draw the most interest: one is New This Week, where players find games that just launched. The other is Pre-releases, where players follow upcoming titles and sign up to hear the moment they go live. In the mid-core and hardcore space we focus on, players love this. They want to follow a game before launch, build anticipation, and feel part of the journey.

PC and console studios have understood this for years. They invest in brand building and pre-launch campaigns as a matter of course. Mobile has been slow to do the same, and I think that is a mistake worth fixing.

What a Developer Actually Gets

Matching the right player with the right game is the core of what we do. On top of that, we built tools meant to help a game spread on its own.

Two of them do most of the work. Game Lists let players collect and share the games they love. Activity shows a player's friends what they are doing, whether they start a game, write a review, add it to a wishlist, or drop it into a list. Every one of those actions becomes a small recommendation to someone who trusts them.

Then there are developer profiles; my favorite feature.

Half of the players who try one game from a developer go on to download another from that same studio through its Skich profile.

That is real brand awareness for developers, something the mobile market rarely offers.

A Fairer Deal on Money

The traditional store model has always bothered me on one point. You pay the same commission whether the store found your player or you did. That never felt fair.

So we do it differently. We charge a 15 percent commission only on the organic traffic we send you. If we did not help you find that player, we don't take a cut. We are also building a way for developers to bring their own audience into Skich, and we will share the terms for that once it is ready.

Who This is Really For

Right now, two groups are moving fastest toward alternative distribution. Large publishers want new channels they can own. Indie developers want organic traffic they cannot buy their way to. Mid-size studios are the most cautious so far, which I understand, though I suspect that will change as the path gets easier.

And it is getting easier. Distribution has always been our hardest problem, because installing a store through a website is strange behavior for most people, and Android's security warnings did not help. That is changing too. Alongside the US launch inside Google Play, Android has announced a simpler way to install alternative stores from websites worldwide. We have been getting ready for this moment for a while.

Where This Goes Next

I think we are about to see a market with dozens, maybe hundreds, of alternative stores, similar to what happened in China. The ones that last will not try to be everything to everyone. They will win by owning a specific niche and audience. For us, that means becoming the store mid-core and hardcore players trust, with games, developers, and features they cannot find anywhere else.

None of this works alone, though. Opening a new channel is one thing. Handling payments, taxes, and the operational work behind direct distribution is another, and it is not where most studios want to spend their energy. 

This struggle is why we teamed up with Xsolla. We help developers step into direct distribution, while Xsolla handles the underlying payment processing and infrastructure. The goal was never to add more work to your plate. It was to give your game all the things it needs to reach players and grow, without asking you to rebuild your business to get there.

The gates are opening. For the first time in a long time, that is genuinely good news for the people who make games.

Interviews, copywriting, editing, and article publication prepared by Kirill Tokarev, Lisa Sirlin-Hall, Viktoria Steshina, and David Jagneaux.