Stop Leaving IP on the Table

I've spent more than thirty years on both sides of IP licensing deals, first at Sony Pictures managing franchises like Spider-Man and Ghostbusters, Fox Entertainment, and now as a licensing executive and consultant working across many areas, including Video Games, Toys, Trading Cards, Location based entertainment, among others. In all that time, the single most persistent myth I've encountered is this one: entertainment IP licensing is only for the biggest players.

It isn't. It never really was, and today that myth is actively costing independent and mid-size studios real money, especially in mobile.

Why IP is no longer just for AAA

My name is Mark Caplan, and I'm a global IP licensing advisor with Xsolla Agency, and I want you to know that the conventional wisdom made sense in a different era. When your primary distribution channel was a brick-and-mortar retailer and your marketing budget had to justify a guaranteed minimum in the millions, the math only worked at scale. A mid-size studio simply couldn't carry the financial weight of a traditional entertainment license.

Mobile changed the equation entirely. Digital storefronts and global distribution have eliminated the retail gatekeeper, and IP owners have followed. Deals now reflect a broader range of partners: smaller guarantees offset by higher royalty rates, event-based integrations rather than full-game licenses, guest character appearances with limited approval scope. A meaningful licensed integration for a mobile game can close with a minimum guarantee in the mid five figures and a reasonable royalty rate against net revenue.

The IP landscape has also broadened. Anime, wrestling, sports, comic properties, and legacy gaming franchises are all actively seeking mobile game licensing partners right now. The question isn't whether there's IP available at your budget level. There is. The question is whether you have the relationships and the process to get to a yes.

The mobile business case is stronger than most developers realize

The gaming industry spent $25 billion on user acquisition in 2025, according to AppsFlyer. Mobile game CPI on iOS has climbed every year since 2020, driven by intensifying competition and the deprecation of IDFA, which stripped the targeting infrastructure that kept acquisition costs manageable for a decade. In that environment, anything that gives a studio a structural advantage in discovery and conversion isn't a nice-to-have. It's a business imperative.

Licensed IP is that advantage. The clearest proof is Scopely. Starting from a small Los Angeles studio, Scopely built its entire strategy around licensed properties: Monopoly, Marvel, Star Trek, WWE, and most recently Pokemon Go following its $3.5 billion acquisition of Niantic's gaming division. The company's co-CEO has described IP as "a path to building distribution advantage because the best IP in the world carries audiences." The results back that up. Scopely surpassed $15 billion in lifetime revenue and was acquired for $4.9 billion. Every major title in its portfolio is a licensed property.

Monopoly GO!, the highest-grossing mobile game of 2024, is the most recent data point. It generated roughly $2 billion in revenue within its first ten months. The Monopoly brand brought a global, multigenerational audience into a mobile format that would have taken years and hundreds of millions in UA spend to build from scratch with original IP.

App store featuring is a second lever that often gets overlooked. Platform editors respond to recognizable licensed properties, particularly around launch windows and live events. A mid-size studio with original IP competes against a crowded field for editorial attention. That same studio with a well-known licensed property tied to a game event has a meaningfully better shot at a featuring slot, and featuring drives organic installs that no paid campaign can replicate.

Retention and monetization are a third lever. Limited-time licensed events drive spikes in daily active users and in-app purchase conversions. The IP owner typically cross-promotes to their own audience, which is essentially free acquisition from a fan base that already has an emotional relationship with the brand. None of this is automatic. A poorly negotiated deal, a misaligned IP choice, or a weak integration can underdelive

What a realistic entry-level deal looks like

Here's a construct that reflects how these deals actually work at the mid-market level. A mobile RPG studio with 500,000 monthly active users approaches a mid-tier anime licensor about a limited-time character integration tied to a seasonal event. The studio is not a household name. The IP is well-known within its fan community but not a global franchise.

The deal closes with a minimum guarantee in the $75,000 to $125,000 range, calculated against a royalty rate of 12 to 15 percent of net revenue generated during the event window. The licensor retains approval rights over character art, in-game dialogue, and promotional materials, with a committed review turnaround of 10 business days per submission. The term is 90 days, with an option to renew for future events. Total negotiation to signed agreement: roughly 60 days.

That is an accessible deal. The studio gets a recognizable property, built-in cross-promotion to an engaged fan base, and a featured event that drives both new installs and in-app purchase spikes. The licensor gets guaranteed revenue, a new channel for fan engagement, and a proof point for future game licensing conversations. Neither party needed to be a billion-dollar company to make it work.

Where deals actually break down

The friction in IP licensing isn't access to a list of available properties. That part is manageable. The friction is process: knowing which IP owners are genuinely active in mobile games versus the ones who will string you through a six-month approval cycle and then pass, understanding what their approval workflows actually look like, knowing whether the legal team at a given licensor runs deals through a standard form or writes from scratch every time, and knowing how to structure the guarantee and royalty terms in a way that gets to a signed agreement rather than a negotiation that stalls.

Most mobile studios, particularly those without a dedicated licensing function, don't have that institutional knowledge. They approach an IP owner cold, get routed to a licensing contact who may or may not be empowered to make decisions, and spend months in a process that was never going to close. That's not a failure of the concept. It's a failure of infrastructure.

I've seen studios spend the better part of a year on a deal that a more connected team could have closed or killed in sixty days. Time is a real cost in game development.

Where Xsolla Agency fits

Xsolla Agency's role in a licensing deal is to compress the process and reduce structural risk on the developer side. That means existing relationships at the licensor level, not just a directory of contacts, but working relationships with the people who actually move deals forward at entertainment companies, sports leagues, and rights holders across the games industry. For a mobile developer approaching a licensor for the first time, that access is the difference between a deal that moves in thirty days and one that quietly dies in a licensing department inbox.

It also means deal structuring. One of the most consistent mistakes studios make in their first licensing negotiation is accepting a gross sales royalty base when the market standard in many categories is calculated on net revenue. That one structural difference can mean your effective royalty rate is 30 to 40 percent higher than you intended. Knowing what's standard across categories, what's negotiable, and where a licensor is likely to hold firm is knowledge that comes from doing a lot of these deals, not from reading a licensing primer.

Beyond structuring, Xsolla Agency helps developers identify the right IP to pursue in the first place, matching the property's audience profile and approval culture to the studio's game and development capacity. Not every IP owner runs a developer-friendly program, and spending months on the wrong deal is a cost most mobile studios can't absorb. The goal is to get developers into deals that actually close, on terms that work, with IP that moves the needle for their specific title.

What you need before approaching a deal

Whether you work with a partner or go direct, a few things make the difference between a deal that moves and one that stalls.

• A clear integration brief. IP owners need to understand exactly where and how their property will appear in your game. Vague asks get slow, skeptical responses.
• Audience data. Know your DAU, player demographics, and retention curve. Licensors are evaluating whether your player base overlaps meaningfully with their fan base.
• A realistic guarantee range. Know what you can actually commit to before you start the conversation. Coming in with a number you can't defend damages credibility.
• A timeline that accounts for approval cycles. Most licensors require creative approvals at multiple stages. Build that into your development and marketing calendar before you sign, not after.
• Legal review capacity. Even a relatively straightforward license agreement runs 20 to 30 pages with exhibits. Have counsel who understands IP licensing review it before you sign.

IP licensing has a reputation for being slow, opaque, and biased toward incumbents. Some of that reputation is earned. A significant portion exists because studios have historically tried to navigate it alone, without the relationships, the process knowledge, or the deal infrastructure that makes it work.

Xsolla Agency is in the business of closing that gap. If you've been watching an IP opportunity and assuming it wasn't for a studio your size, it's worth a second look.

Ready to explore what entertainment IP could mean for your next mobile project? Xsolla Agency works with developers and publishers across all studio sizes. Reach out to learn more.