Xsolla President Releases Book on Ending Gaming Industry’s Hit-Driven Model

Amid ongoing layoffs, contraction, and industry discourse regarding discless hardware, the global gaming market continues to search for stable operational strategies. While many look toward upcoming major releases like Grand Theft Auto VI to solve financial pressures, Xsolla president Chris Hewish argues that structural changes are necessary to secure healthy business models, according to reporting from Variety.

The Five Pillars of Durable Advantage at Gamescom 2026

Hewish launched his text, titled Durable Advantage: Five Pillars of the Modern Game Business, last month at Gamescom 2026 in Cologne, which serves as an annual meeting point for industry executives. The book outlines five foundational areas that define a healthy gaming business: relationships, commerce, intelligence, trust, and time.

Not just great games, but they’ve really built up this business around these five framework pillars. They are governing those pillars when it comes to their business. They’re not completely reliant completely on somebody else for all of those.

Chris Hewish, President of Xsolla

Hewish points out that companies relying entirely on third-party platforms like app stores surrender direct control over player relationships, commerce, and behavioral intelligence, which can hinder trust-building with users.

Evaluating First-Party Models and Payment Intelligence

As the president of a fintech firm providing video game payment software—including PayStation payment-integration tools—and drawing on his background as a former executive at Activision and DreamWorks, Hewish challenges developers to scrutinize their operational independence. He asks whether studios are true owners of their business components or merely renters.

Regarding the intelligence pillar, Hewish notes that reliance on standard dashboards creates dangerous blind spots. While companies track active users and general revenue per country, putting all transactions through an external platform means the commerce data stays with the platform rather than flowing back to the developer.

You may assume, oh my gosh, we need to make more content for that country because it’s just not relevant or we need to localize more in that country. And so you spend resources in that direction. The intelligence pillar is saying, well, hold on, you need a complete picture of what’s happening because what you have missed is the fact that there was a new payment method that was introduced in that country and it blew up.

Chris Hewish, President of Xsolla

Using the hypothetical emergence of new payment options like Venmo capturing 20 percent of a player base, Hewish illustrates how a studio might misdiagnose a payment friction issue as a content deficit, wasting valuable resources.