Book Draws on Chris Hewish’s Three Decades of Leadership in the Global Games Industry, Grounded in “Renters vs. Owners” Theory and Five-Pillars for Scaling and Succeeding

Xsolla, a leading global commerce company, today announced Durable Advantage: Five Pillars of the Modern Game Business, a new book authored by Chris Hewish, President of Xsolla, launching at Gamescom 2026 in Cologne.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260826628682/en/

Graphic: Xsolla

Xsolla's integrated strategy brings together global payments, direct-to-consumer commerce, backend infrastructure, and AI-powered development tools into a unified operating model designed to help studios launch, operate, and scale more efficiently. Rather than relying on disconnected commerce, engagement, and backend systems, developers can activate new capabilities through a common platform foundation that reduces complexity, accelerates deployment, and creates a more durable foundation for long-term growth. The strategic framework behind this vision is outlined in Durable Advantage.

"There are two kinds of game companies, renters and owners," said Hewish. "Renters build good games and distribute through platforms they do not control, measuring success through downloads and launch rankings. Owners govern their own player relationships, commerce, and data, and turn those advantages into value that compounds over time."

Drawing on more than 30 years across the video game industry, the book makes an uncomfortable argument: many of the industry's most visible successes are among its weakest businesses, and the studios building lasting enterprise value are often the ones nobody is talking about.

The Durable Advantage framework is organized around five pillars that address the structural challenges game companies face as they scale: creating a unified operating model, expanding globally, building direct relationships with players, and simplifying operations. Together, these pillars provide a roadmap to help studios evolve from relying primarily on third-party platforms to owning more of their commerce, customer relationships, and long-term business value.

The book puts hard numbers on the stakes. A game generating $200 million a year hands roughly $60 million of it to platforms under a standard 30 percent fee, and across a decade, that single line reaches $600 million, enough to fund new studios, original IP, and years of operation. In the retail era, that fee paid for manufacturing, shelf space, and distribution. In a business built on recurring digital revenue, Hewish argues, the same fee now applies to every transaction throughout the player's life, whether the platform contributed to it or not.

Hewish illustrates the point with his own experience. He shipped a mobile game that passed 100 million downloads in months and still watched it collapse once promotion stopped, because the business never owned its relationship with the players it had reached. The downloads were real. The durable business was not. What a studio keeps is its account system, its commerce, and its direct line to players. A studio that owns those from the start reaches its players directly, instead of paying a platform 30 percent to access an audience it already earned.

"The next generation of successful game companies will be defined not only by the quality of their games, but by the strength of the business systems that support them," said Hewish. "Our integrated commerce platform gives studios a more connected foundation for payments, player relationships, live operations, and monetization, helping them scale more efficiently over the long term."

Hewish will deliver a keynote at gamescom on Wednesday, 26 August between 10:30 AM and 12 PM CEST, where he will discuss how the Durable Advantage framework translates into an integrated commerce strategy for modern game businesses. Xsolla will also showcase its platform and host attendees at its gamescom activation.

Durable Advantage will be available in print and digital editions. Copies will also be available at Xsolla's gamescom presence in Cologne from August 26 to 30, 2026. For more information, please visit: https://xsolla.pro/077b7c

About Xsolla

Xsolla is a global commerce company that builds and provides all the things developers need to launch, grow, and monetize video games. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, the company supports studios of every size, from indie to AAA, with solutions across direct-to-consumer commerce, intelligent payments, entertainment-based IP, and player engagement products. Xsolla helps developers fund, distribute, market, and monetize their games at scale. Trusted by more than 70% of the top 100 highest-grossing games, Xsolla operates as the Merchant of Record across 200+ geographies with access to 1,000+ local payment methods worldwide. Grounded in a deep belief in the future of gaming, Xsolla is resolute in bringing opportunities together and unlocking growth for creators everywhere.

For more information, visit xsolla.com

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260826628682/en/