Steve Ganem (Unity VP of Product): Why Unity Made D2C Payments Free — and What It's Really After

Unity just made direct-to-consumer payments free for every developer on its IAP SDK. No take rate, no fees. So what's the catch?
I sat down with Steve Ganem, VP of Product at Unity, to unpack the real strategy — and it turns out the story isn't about payments at all. It's about data.
Steve brings a rare vantage point: 19 years in games (EA, Activision's Tony Hawk franchise, 11 years running his own studio through the free-to-play transition), then a decade at Google Analytics. In this conversation we cover why "free" is a rational move rather than a giveaway, why going D2C without Unity could actually cost developers ad signal, the conversion tradeoff most coverage skips (web checkout is harder than Face ID), and how this connects to Unity's advertising business and its AI platform, Vector.
Whether you're a developer weighing D2C, a PM modeling the conversion math, or an investor watching Unity's turnaround, this one goes well past the announcement.
📖 Full written analysis: https://www.gamemakers.com/p/the-most-important-number-in-unitys