The gaming industry now generates more revenue than movies and music combined, yet the creators behind it often struggle, with mobile developers losing 30% of revenue to platform fees and globally ambitious studios facing fragmented payment systems, complex regulations, and diverse cultural expectations.
At the same time, gaming is evolving into social platforms, entertainment venues, shopping destinations, and cultural hubs, where players expect seamless experiences that blend entertainment, social interaction, and commerce, yet many marketing leaders remain focused on vanity metrics and short-term wins, leaving developers to navigate these challenges on their own.
Here comes Berkley Egenes, Chief Marketing & Growth Officer at Xsolla, leverages over 20 years of experience shaping growth strategies for brands like Ghost Gaming, Kellogg’s, TCL, and Disney, and forging partnerships with organizations including the NBA, NFL, and IBM. Known for scaling brands and connecting technology with culture, he now leads at the epicenter of gaming commerce, guiding a company that empowers developers and publishers worldwide to grow games, reach global audiences, and build sustainable businesses.
He stands out for his belief that value creation drives everything, leading innovations like the Xsolla Web Shop and Funding Club to empower developers and studios. His leadership combines data-informed customer focus, regional relevance, brand consistency, and the development of curious, resilient, and experimental teams.
The Journey of a Gaming Evangelist
Berkley’s career has been fueled by a fascination with how brands can forge transformative connections with audiences at the intersection of technology and culture, guiding an extraordinary two-decade journey through the converging realms of gaming, entertainment, and technology.
- Over the past 20+ years, he has built growth strategies and global campaigns across these dynamic industries.
- His portfolio includes work with iconic brands such as Ghost Gaming, NEXTVR, Kellogg’s, TCL, and Alcatel.
- He has also forged partnerships with legendary organizations, including the USOC, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, Disney, and IBM.
Each experience taught him valuable lessons about scaling brands, forging meaningful partnerships, and staying ahead of rapidly evolving consumer behaviors, serving not just as résumé builders but as masterclasses in adaptation and growth.
What drew him to Xsolla was the chance to work at the heart of gaming commerce, empowering developers and publishers to grow globally. As Chief Marketing & Growth Officer, he applies his expertise in brand strategy, performance marketing, and ecosystem building to shape how games are discovered, monetized, and experienced.
“Gaming isn’t just entertainment anymore it’s culture, community, and commerce. Xsolla is building the infrastructure that makes it all possible.”
Berkley Egenes
The Three Pillars of Growth Leadership
At the heart of his leadership philosophy, Berkley identifies three key principles that guide every action and decision at Xsolla:
- First, focus on creating real value starting with customers, then partners, and finally the business, because if you’re not solving genuine problems for developers and publishers, nothing else matters; value creation drives everything.
- Second, stay customer-obsessed but data-informed, not data-blinded: while data shows what’s happening, it doesn’t always reveal why or what to do next, so you need both the numbers and the nuance and the ability to listen closely to what the market is truly saying.
- Third, lead with curiosity and purpose: as markets evolve and technology shifts, teams perform best when aligned around a clear mission, empowered to experiment, and held accountable for meaningful outcomes.
Berkley Egenes underscores that resilience and adaptability are as vital as vision, because even the most brilliant strategy is theoretical if a team cannot pivot or recover from setbacks. At Xsolla, this philosophy informs everyday operations: they continuously refine approaches based on developer feedback, launching the Xsolla Web Shop to address mobile monetization gaps and the Xsolla Funding Club to provide studios with access to capital.
They remain attuned to industry trends, empower teams to experiment with new ideas, and gauge success by what truly matters, helping partners increase revenue, reach wider audiences, and successfully launch more games. As he reflects, growth isn’t merely about dashboard metrics; it’s about creating solutions that meaningfully advance the industry.
Narrative, Relevance, Integration Ft. The Growth Formula
Reflecting on Xsolla’s global success, Berkley points to a strategy built on three pillars: narrative clarity, adapting to regional markets, and integrating performance across all initiatives.
- First, they established a clear narrative: Xsolla empowers game developers and publishers to grow their business globally, a promise that goes beyond marketing speak and shapes every campaign, partnership, and market-entry decision.
- Second, they’ve expanded with regional relevance: Gaming is global, yet far from uniform, what succeeds in North America often looks very different in Southeast Asia, Latin America, or the Middle East.
- Third, they’ve integrated brand and performance from day one: Every campaign has measurable objectives tied to business outcomes: pipeline growth, platform adoption, partner retention, and revenue expansion.
Berkley Egenes explains that Xsolla drives growth through localized go-to-market strategies, aligning storytelling with performance metrics while keeping marketing, product, and sales focused on shared KPIs.
In a fast-moving industry, the team stays agile and partner-focused, continually listening, learning, and iterating. As he reflects, “Brand growth isn’t about awareness in isolation. It’s about becoming indispensable to the people we serve.”
The Web Shop 2.0 Way
Asked how Xsolla nurtures creativity in a fast-evolving digital landscape, Berkley Egenes points to a simple philosophy: solve real problems first, then design campaigns that clearly demonstrate the value of the solution.
- The Xsolla Web Shop 2.0 launch is a clear example: mobile developers were losing 30% of their revenue to platform fees, prompting the creation of a no-code solution that enables custom storefronts in 24 hours while supporting 1,000+ payment methods globally.
- The innovation lies in technology that removes friction and unlocks new revenue streams, with the campaign succeeding by pairing that innovation with clear, measurable proof.
Berkley Egenes explains that they led with outcomes developers truly care about: 60% repeat purchase rates, 20%+ increases in retention, and studios keeping 95% of their revenue. They didn’t just tell the story, they proved it with data
They then built a complete ecosystem around it, integrating with attribution partners such as AppsFlyer, Adjust, and Singular to enable performance tracking, extending distribution through Discord and Creator Storefronts to reach players where they already are, and providing hands-on enablement to help developers fully leverage the technology.
The result: #1 web shop provider, powering 40 of the top 100 highest-grossing mobile games.
Scalability, he explains, comes from the right balance: studios focus on creativity and player experience while Xsolla manages the complex infrastructure behind the scenes. As Berkley Egenes puts it, “That’s how we think about innovation in marketing, launching products while building ecosystems where creativity and performance thrive together, all tied to measurable business outcomes.”
The Three Shifts Redefining Gaming and Marketing
Reflecting on the forces shaping the future, Berkley points to three interconnected trends that are set to transform both digital marketing and the gaming industry.
- The first is AI-driven personalization at scale, where the industry is moving beyond basic segmentation toward truly individualized player experiences, using AI to deliver the right content, offers, and messages at the right moment across the entire journey, ultimately enabling deeper and more meaningful connections rather than simply automating marketing.
- The second shift is the rise of creator-led ecosystems as a new distribution model, where creators are no longer just marketing channels but active collaborators shaping game design, building communities, and even launching their own titles, blurring the line between player, creator, and developer while transforming how games are discovered, experienced, and monetized.
- The third shift is the convergence of gaming, commerce, and entertainment into unified experiences, where games evolve into social platforms and cultural hubs blending entertainment, social interaction, and commerce in ways that feel seamless and natural for the next generation of players.
The biggest shift underlying all of this? We’re moving from channel-based marketing to experience-based engagement. It’s no longer about optimizing individual touchpoints; it’s about creating cohesive, immersive experiences that span platforms, communities, and formats.
Amid these shifts lies a powerful opportunity for Xsolla, as developers increasingly need infrastructure from flexible payment systems to creator tools and cross-platform commerce that can support these evolving models, with success ultimately belonging to brands that truly understand their audiences and build experiences around what players genuinely want.
Lessons in Resilience and Adaptability
Reflecting on the defining challenges of his marketing journey, Berkley Egenes points to one experience that reshaped his perspective: scaling marketing across vastly different global markets.
Navigating varied cultural expectations, payment preferences, regulatory environments, and competitive landscapes taught him that resilience and adaptability matter just as much as strategy, because what succeeds in one region may fall flat in another, making it clear that a winning playbook cannot simply be copied, but must be thoughtfully adapted to each market.
This experience fundamentally shaped his approach to growth leadership:
- First, empower local teams while maintaining accountability, recognizing that those closest to a market understand it best and should have the autonomy to experiment, while staying aligned on shared outcomes to ensure both creativity and discipline.
- Second, build teams that are curious and comfortable with uncertainty, recognizing that as markets, technology, and player behaviors constantly evolve, the strongest marketing teams are those that ask the right questions, run experiments, and remain intellectually curious and resilient when outcomes don’t go as planned.
- Third, focus on long-term value creation rather than short-term wins, recognizing that while chasing quick metrics, vanity numbers, and immediate conversions can be tempting, sustainable growth ultimately comes from building trust with partners and customers, clarifying what you stand for, and executing consistently over time.
These lessons guide Xsolla’s approach: empowering regional teams, fostering experimentation, and measuring success by long-term developer growth, while reinforcing Egenes’ belief that effective growth leadership lies in building resilient, adaptable teams rather than having all the answers.
Balancing Global Brand with Local Trust
“It starts with listening.” In Berkeley’s view, these four words capture how Xsolla approaches the challenge of operating across diverse regions while maintaining a cohesive brand identity.
Balancing brand consistency with regional adaptation, he believes, begins with a simple realization: one size rarely fits all. Campaigns are built around shared KPIs to keep everyone aligned, while regional teams are given the freedom to iterate and adapt strategies to local nuances. In this way, everyone works toward the same objectives, yet each team can rely on its own understanding of local audiences to determine the most effective path forward.
Whether working with brand ambassadors, creators, or talent, he believes trust and alignment are essential, noting that when people genuinely believe in the product and are given creative freedom, their authenticity resonates far more strongly with audiences than collaborations that feel forced or overly controlled from headquarters.
“The most successful collaborations,” he notes, “feel culturally authentic while remaining connected to the core brand narrative.” Striking this balance between global consistency and local relevance allows Xsolla to preserve a unified identity while meaningfully engaging players and partners across diverse markets, creating an environment where both dimensions strengthen and complement each other.
Building Sustainable Impact in Modern Marketing Leadership
Anyone hoping to shape the future of marketing will find his advice both practical and thoughtful: build a strong foundation in analytics and data early on, but never lose sight of strategy and storytelling, the elements that ultimately give brands their meaning and life.
In his view, impactful leadership also means cultivating cross-functional teams that are naturally curious and comfortable with experimentation, creating space for innovation and continuous learning. Above all, he urges emerging marketers to prioritize long-term value creation over short-term wins, emphasizing that sustainable growth is ultimately built on trust, clarity, and consistent execution.
Accelerating the Future of Global Game Commerce
Looking ahead to what’s next for Xsolla and his role in shaping its direction through 2026 and beyond, his focus is clear: the company is doubling down on next-generation monetization infrastructure to make it significantly easier for studios of all sizes to sell directly to players across platforms. A key priority is expanding the direct-to-consumer ecosystem with new SDKs, enhanced checkout flows, and deeper integrations across PC, console, and mobile environments, ultimately enabling developers to own their player relationships end-to-end.
At the same time, they are broadening the Xsolla Ecosystem, a curated network of vetted technology and service partners designed to reduce friction for studios seeking analytics, marketing, cloud services, user acquisition, and live ops support. By creating a seamless “plug and play” stack, the company aims to accelerate development and scaling, reinforcing its commitment to empowering developers worldwide.
