Chris Hewish, Xsolla President: “Xsolla’s technology and product roadmap is built around anticipating where game development and player behavior are moving, rather than simply reacting to trends.”
Xsolla started in 2005 with a simple idea that still drives the company today. Game creators should be free to focus on building the worlds players love, not wrestling with the messy, invisible machinery behind global commerce. Back then, the industry was full of brilliant teams making great games, yet many of them kept running into the same brick walls. Payments worked differently in every region. Regulations shifted constantly. Fraud tools weren’t built with games in mind. Monetization systems felt bolted on rather than designed for how players actually behave. The result was predictable. Developers had the talent to create, but not always the infrastructure to grow. What this really means is that Xsolla was built to clear those barriers out of the way. The founders saw how fragmented the global payments landscape had become. A game that launched seamlessly in North America might hit a wall in Korea or Brazil simply because players there used different payment methods or local rules made things complicated. Most studios couldn’t afford to learn the financial systems of every country, nor should they have needed to. Xsolla stepped in with a dedicated payment and commerce engine built specifically for gaming. The goal was to let developers reach players anywhere without reinventing the financial wheel for every market.
Here’s the thing. Payments were only one part of the problem. Developers were also relying heavily on third party platforms for storefronts and access to their own players. That dependence meant limited control over pricing, data, community engagement, and long term strategy. Xsolla believed developers deserved more ownership. So the company built tools that let them create direct to player web shops, run their own promotions, manage game keys, track player activity, and design monetization plans that made sense for their worlds. This shift allowed small indie teams to act with the kind of freedom that once belonged only to the biggest publishers. As Xsolla expanded its reach to cities like Los Angeles, Montreal, Berlin, Seoul, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Raleigh, and Tokyo, another recurring challenge showed up. Even with strong tools and global access, many developers struggled to secure funding that respected the realities of game creation. Traditional investment models didn’t always fit. Some investors wanted company equity when the team really needed project based support. Others didn’t understand the long development cycles or the unpredictable nature of creative work. Instead of accepting that as the status quo, Xsolla launched initiatives like the Funding Club. The idea was to connect developers and investors in a way that honored how games are actually made, giving teams a fairer path to the resources they needed.
Today, guided by Chris Hewish as President, Xsolla offers a full suite of services that covers the business side of game development from launch to growth. Hundreds of local payment methods. A global tax and compliance framework. Fraud prevention baked into every transaction. Custom storefront tools for direct distribution. Creator and affiliate programs that help developers market their games with real reach. Funding pathways that don’t force teams to compromise their vision. Everything is designed around one purpose. Make the business side of games simpler, smarter, and more accessible so creators can keep their attention where it belongs.
Xsolla’s story isn’t about infrastructure. It’s about opening doors for developers around the world. It is about removing friction from the creative process. It is about helping great games find the players who will love them. And that idea from 2005 is still right at the center of everything the company does.
In conversation with Chris Hewish, President of Xsolla
Xsolla operates as a “video game business engine,” providing everything from payments and funding to cloud tools. How does this integrated, all-in-one approach uniquely solve the fragmented operational challenges that game developers face, allowing them to focus purely on creativity?
Xsolla’s integrated, all-in-one approach solves developers’ operational challenges by replacing a patchwork of disconnected tools with a single, unified ecosystem explicitly built for games. Instead of juggling separate providers for payments, fraud prevention, funding, distribution, authentication, and creator programs, developers get a cohesive system where every component works seamlessly together.
This eliminates the technical overhead of stitching together services, reduces risk from inconsistent compliance or security standards, and dramatically cuts down on the time teams spend managing infrastructure instead of making games.
Xsolla centralizes global payments, operational workflows, and monetization tools under one roof, enabling developers to gain a reliable business backbone that scales with them across markets. As a result, teams can finally shift their resources away from complex business operations and focus entirely on what matters most: building creative, engaging gaming experiences.