Xsolla, the Los Angeles-based gaming commerce company, has unveiled Co-Marketing Campaigns, a self-serve feature within its Business Account for Payment Providers platform. The tool lets payment providers initiate, manage and launch promotional campaigns, such as cashback offers, directly with video game developers, without requiring a separate workflow or intermediary negotiation.
The product addresses a gap that Xsolla has identified in the gaming payments value chain. Payment providers process substantial transaction volumes across video games but have historically had little visibility into how their methods perform by title or developer, and no standardised route to translate that data into marketing partnerships. The new tool is designed to close both gaps inside a single dashboard.
How the workflow operates
The four-step process runs entirely within the provider’s existing Xsolla Business Account. Providers first review analytics showing which games generate the strongest uptake for their payment method. They then configure a campaign, selecting parameters such as a cashback percentage linked to a specific title. The request is sent to the relevant developer, who must accept before anything goes live. Once both parties have agreed, Xsolla handles the technical setup and the promotion appears at checkout inside Xsolla Pay Station and on a dedicated landing page.
Chris Hewish, president of Xsolla, framed the commercial logic clearly: “Payment providers have long competed mostly on rate. Co-Marketing Campaigns give them a way to win on more than that, with promotions built around the video games their customers already play. It turns a payment relationship into a marketing one, and it runs from the account they already have.”
Xsolla also noted it is developing additional initiatives for banks and financial institutions, including loyalty point integrations, branded in-game stores and cardholder promotions tied to gaming audiences. No timeline or named partners were provided for these broader banking initiatives.
Market context
The gaming payments sector is a significant but structurally underserved vertical. Xsolla claims reach across more than 1,500 game developers and operates as merchant of record in more than 200 geographies, with access to over 1,000 local payment methods. That network density is the commercial foundation on which Co-Marketing Campaigns depends: the tool has limited value without a large enough catalogue of games for providers to select from and a sizable enough player base to make promotional economics work.
The broader competitive dynamic is relevant here. Payment providers in gaming have typically differentiated on acceptance rates, local method coverage and settlement speed. Adding a marketing dimension shifts the competitive frame. If Xsolla can demonstrate measurable lift in payment method preference from cashback campaigns, it repositions the platform from a processing intermediary to a performance marketing channel for providers, a more defensible and higher-margin role.
For payment providers, the question will be whether the campaign economics justify the effort. Cashback promotions in gaming tend to work well with younger, price-sensitive audiences, but they require careful yield management. The self-serve framing suggests Xsolla is aiming for scale across many smaller campaigns rather than a small number of bespoke deals, which is the right structural bet if the developer network is deep enough to support it.
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