Xsolla president Chris Hewish released his new book, Durable Advantage: Five Pillars of the Modern Game Business, at the Gamescom 2026 conference in Cologne, outlining strategies for the nearly $350 billion gaming industry to move beyond a risky hit-driven model. Amid ongoing layoffs, industry contraction, and debates over discless hardware, Hewish argues that studios must reevaluate their structural independence rather than relying solely on blockbuster releases like “Grand Theft Auto VI” to fix financial pressures.
Evaluating the Five Pillars of a Healthy Game Business
Launched at the annual meeting of industry executives in Cologne, Hewish’s book identifies five foundational areas that define a sustainable gaming business: relationships, commerce, intelligence, trust, and time. According to reporting from Variety, Hewish stresses that successful companies do not just build great games; they govern their own business pillars.
“Not just great games, but they’ve really built up this business around these five framework pillars,” Hewish tells Variety. “They are governing those pillars when it comes to their business. They’re not completely reliant completely on somebody else for all of those.”
Did You Know? Chris Hewish is currently the president of fintech company Xsolla, which produces payment software for video games—including PayStation payment-integration tools. He is also a former executive at Activision and DreamWorks.
First-Party Models Versus Third-Party Platforms
Drawing on his background in fintech and major entertainment studios, Hewish challenges developers to examine whether they truly own their operations or if they are merely renting space. He points out that companies relying entirely on third-party platforms, such as app stores, surrender direct control over player relationships, commerce, and behavioral intelligence.
According to Hewish, this heavy reliance on external storefronts can slow down a studio’s ability to build trust with its players because intermediate platforms sit between the developer and the consumer.
Fixing Blind Spots in Data and Payment Intelligence
Under the intelligence pillar, Hewish argues that studios often trap themselves on a hit-driven hamster wheel because they rely on incomplete data from standard platform dashboards. While developers can easily track active users and general revenue per country, putting all transactions through an external platform means the underlying commerce data stays with the platform rather than flowing back to the creator.
Hewish provides a hypothetical example of how missing payment data leads to misdiagnosed problems. If a studio notices a sudden revenue drop in a specific country, leadership might incorrectly assume the game’s content has grown stale or needs localized resources. In reality, a new payment method—such as Venmo—might have captured 20 percent of the player base in that region, and the studio’s existing platform failed to integrate it, causing players to stop using legacy payment methods without being able to adopt new ones.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core premise of Chris Hewish’s new book?
Titled Durable Advantage: Five Pillars of the Modern Game Business, the book argues that video game companies need to focus on relationships, commerce, intelligence, trust, and time to escape a risky hit-driven operational model.
Where was Durable Advantage launched?
The book debuted at Gamescom 2026 in Cologne.
How do third-party platforms affect a studio’s intelligence data?
When transactions run entirely through an external platform, critical commerce and payment data remain with the platform instead of flowing back to the developer, creating blind spots that can lead studios to misinterpret revenue drops.
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