Remember the thrill of flipping through vinyl records at a local shop, hunting for that one album that spoke to your soul? Or the magic of popping a new game disc into your console, heart racing as the title screen loaded? Nostalgia is powerful, but let’s be real: no gamer ever waxed poetic about watching a download progress bar crawl to 100%. In a world where Netflix and Spotify deliver instant gratification, gamers are stuck waiting, sometimes hours, to hit “Play.” And that wait is costing you more than just their patience.
As games industry strategist Reinout te Brake put it (Read his full analysis here):
“First impressions no longer begin at ‘Start Game’; they begin at ‘Downloading 0%.’ Just like how ‘stream instantly’ redefined music and video, ‘play instantly’ may soon become the norm—not the novelty.”
The numbers tell a painful story. Since 2012, top game sizes have ballooned from 10 GB to over 250 GB. Even with a blazing 242 Mbps connection (tachus.com), a 100 GB download takes nearly an hour. Add server bottlenecks, launch-day surges, or massive day-one patches, and you’ve got frustrated gamers abandoning carts and skipping titles. A DMA survey of 2,000 gamers revealed:
That’s lost revenue, lost players, and a missed chance to connect with your audience when their excitement is at its peak.
But here’s the good news: you can change the game. Literally. With ROCKITPLAY FastStart, integrated into the Xsolla Publishing Suite, you can deliver what gamers crave: instant play. No preloading, no scheduling downloads, no staring at progress bars. Players click and dive right in, while the rest of the game downloads seamlessly in the background. It’s the full power of local play with the ease of streaming, and it’s available to publishers of all sizes.
Why does this matter? Because instant access isn’t just convenient, it’s a game-changer for user acquisition and monetization:
Your audience doesn’t just want games, they want experiences that respect their time and fuel their passion. With FastStart, you’re not just selling a game; you’re delivering joy, the moment they hit “Play.”
If you’re attending Gamescom this August, let’s connect and discuss how FastStart & Xsolla transform game delivery by dramatically improving players’ quality of life, conversion rates and monetization.