The Triple-I Squeeze
Solo Game Creators and Gaming Studios are trapped. The gatekeeper extracts 30% of everything.
$130B in mobile IAP in 2025. Apple and Google took $40B of it. Platform funding has collapsed to 2% — 35% of studios are self-funding. The "Triple-I" dead zone: too expensive to bootstrap, too small for AAA publishing. 87% of classic games are already inaccessible due to platform decay.
The Tipping Point
Non-gaming app spend ($85.6B) surpassed gaming spend ($81.8B) in 2025. Players are already conditioned to buy outside app stores. The behavior shift has happened — we just need the infrastructure.
The Solution
Epic v. Apple + EU DMA — Window Open Now
Sovereign infrastructure. Studios keep 95%.
$40B
Recoverable annually
$18.3B
Cloud gaming by 2030
25%
Immediate margin lift
- Sovereign Gateway: global web store, 5% fee, GDPR-compliant, bypasses IAP entirely
- API Connective Tissue: forces legacy console backends and entitlement servers to sync — Shoal's core skill applied to gaming
- Cross-Platform Identity: unified player profile across PC, web, mobile — device is a dumb terminal
- Streamer Pipeline: ad click → cloud demo in browser (no download) → 1-click purchase via Sovereign Gateway
- Developer Consortia: studios pool infra costs, bypass discovery algorithms together (43% cite discoverability as #1 failure)
Revenue Model
5% transaction fee + SaaS · 1K clients = 1M RMB/mo MRR
Sprint 2 · Days 31–60