Own Your Players, Don't Rent Them — D2C, Creator Codes & the Shadow Server Economy | Liam Wiltshire, GM of Tebex

Own Your Players, Don't Rent Them — D2C, Creator Codes & the Shadow Server Economy | Liam Wiltshire, GM of Tebex

From GameMakers by Joseph Kim

June 16, 2026 · 1h 58m

About this episode

Liam Wiltshire discusses the evolving landscape of game monetization and the importance of direct relationships with players.

Epic spent five years and over $100M breaking the platforms' 30% tax — then cut V-Bucks by 20% to "pay the bills." If the company that won the fee war still gets squeezed, what does that say about everyone else? The answer isn't about fees. When AI makes content infinite and attention stays finite, the only asset that appreciates is the direct relationship with your players — the one distribution channel that gets cheaper the stronger it gets. And a nearly invisible economy of community-run game servers has been proving its dollar value for fifteen years. I sit down with Liam Wiltshire, GM of Tebex — the merchant-of-record platform behind direct payments for Rockstar, Take-Two, Hytale, and FiveM — to unpack it. In this episode: Why "is 30% dead?" is the wrong question Creator codes: how trust drives 50–227% more spend The BNPL and crypto data that surprised even Tebex Why 35% of desktop game purchases happen on a phone How Hytale launched off Steam and secured two years of runway from pre-orders alone The £20, 16-year-old origin story behind a company that's processed $1.5B Read the full breakdown and subscribe at gamemakers.com. Chapters 00:00 — Epic cut…

People in this episode

Host: Joseph Kim

Guest: Liam Wiltshire

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Epic, Tebex, Rockstar, Take-Two, Hytale, FiveM, Hypixel

Products: V-Bucks

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