Read now on The Ken: Neil Davidson, co-founder and executive chairman, speaks with Nadine Freischlad on the Coda Payments journey– where we started, where we are now, and where we’re headed.
“ Early on in our journey, we were telling prospective clients about Codapay. We were encouraging them to implement Codapay on their website so that they could collect payments from users, using all the different payment methods that we supported.
They said to us, “Well, that sounds great, except that we don’t have a website. We are a mobile game developer, and all we have is an app. Google and Apple do not permit us to collect payments inside the app, using anything other than their in-app billing systems.” And we said, “Oh, okay.”
Then we iterated on this idea of a website where customers would visit and purchase the currency of the game that they were playing. Then they can use that game currency back in the app. And that was really the original idea for Codashop, which we officially launched in 2015. What Codashop permits is for users to select from a much wider range of payment methods than those that are available through in-app billing. It allows us to offer a user experience that’s actually better for a lot of users than in-app billing.
That billing was really designed for people like me who have a credit card and are happy to put that on file. I can remember my username and password for my device. But for a lot of other users, one or more of those things create some friction. Of course, finally, it’s very expensive to collect payments inside of mobile apps. As a general rule, our clients share about 30% of the revenues they generate with the two major app distribution platforms, Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. There’s a huge incentive on their part to find alternatives that allow them to keep more of those revenues.”
The interview looks at global gaming and app monetization trends, along with a deep dive into 10 years of growth at Coda Payments, from Jakarta to Los Angeles. Subscribers can find the full article here.
“The Interview: Coda Payments’ Neil Davidson on Apple-Google duopoly, global app-monetisation trends” originally appeared on The Ken on October 5, 2022 (requires subscription).
