Key Takeaways
- Google Play's 2026 policy makes developers directly responsible for chargeback fees and disputed amounts - ending the era of platform-absorbed payment risk.
- Under the model most payment providers use, a $5 dispute can becomea $25-30 loss before the studio has done anything wrong.
- Most Merchant of Record providers follow the same broken pattern: charge the studio a fee upfront, attempt a defense, then charge again if they fail.
- Tebex was built on a different principle: the entity that accepts the payment and runs the defense carries the outcome. Studios never lose money on chargebacks.
Walk through the math
A player disputes a $5 in-game purchase. This happens constantly. It happens on fraudulent transactions and legitimate ones - friendly fraud is a well-documented problem, and the tooling to distinguish between the two at scale is not something most studios have in-house.
Under the model that most Merchant of Record providers operate (and soon Google Play itself) the moment that dispute is filed, a chargeback fee hits your account. That fee is typically $15-20. You have not yet lost the dispute. You have been charged simply because it exists.
The provider then assembles defense documents and submits them. Sometimes they win. When they do, you still pay the $15-20 fee. When they don't, they come back to you for the original transaction amount as well.
Net result: you are down $25 on a $5 sale. The provider accepted the payment, ran the risk check, attempted the defense - and you absorbed the consequence when all three decisions went against you.
This is the industry standard. And Google's 2026 policy now makes it your problem in a new and very direct way.
How the same dispute plays out differently depending on your provider
The table below shows the real cost of a single disputed transaction across different provider models, including what Tebex does instead.
The asymmetry in the standard model is not incidental. The provider makes the acceptance decision. The provider runs the defense. The studio pays when both go wrong.
Why small studios feel this hardest
Large publishers ofen have finance operations, legal teams, and dispute workflows built into their infrastructure. They can absorb losses on individual transactions because volume and margin provide cover.
A studio of five people most likely doesnot have that. For a small creator, the fees from a single chargeback on a $5 transaction can represent an entire day of revenue - with no meaningful ability to influence either the acceptance decision or the dispute outcome. The studio had no role in either, yet they carry the cost.
This is also an infrastructure problem. In live-service game economies, virtual goods are consumed the moment they are delivered. Inventory states change continuously. Players transact across multiple devices and billing cycles. Winning disputes requires systems that can capture, organize, and surface transaction evidence on demand, at scale. Most small studios do not have those systems, because until recently, they did not need them.
Google's policy change removes that assumption. And as our GM,Liam Wiltshire put it ahead of the announcement: "The question studios should be asking right now isn't 'how do we handle Google's chargeback policy?' It's 'what does our MoR provider do when a chargeback comes in, and who's actually carrying that risk?'"
What Tebex decided instead
When Tebex was built, a different conclusion was reached about how chargebacks should work. If Tebex accepts the payment, Tebex runs the defense. If the defense fails, Tebex covers the cost - the fee, the admin, the refund to the player. The studio keeps the revenue they made.
That is the Tebex guarantee, and it applies to every studio partner from day one. There is no threshold to unlock it, no enterprise tier that grants protection while smaller studios carry the risk. 100% chargeback protection is the baseline, not a feature.
The logic underneath it is not complicated: the entity making the acceptance decision and the defense decision should carry the outcome of those decisions. Passing the cost back to the studio (after the provider made both calls) is the arrangement that needs replacing. That is what Tebex was built to do.
The conversation every studio should be having right now
Google's announcement is useful precisely because it forces a question that should have been asked already. Not "how do we handle this specific policy?" but "what does our payment provider actually do when a chargeback lands, and who is on the hook when it doesn't resolve in our favor?"
Google's announcement is a massive wake-up call, forcing a question that fields outside of mobile have been dealing with for years: "Who is actually on the hook when a transaction goes wrong?" Many studios are already bypassing mobile store fees by setting up their own D2C webstores. But if you use a standard payment provider or traditional MoR for your webstore, you'll quickly realize they follow the same punitive pattern Google is adopting: they handle chargebacks by charging you.
Ask your provider, in writing: who owns the chargeback fee? Who pays if the defense fails? The answer will tell you more about your real operational exposure than any feature list.
Google's policy shift is one move in a longer reorientation of how platforms relate to payment risk. More platforms will follow. The studios that plan for what comes next will be in a better position than the ones who find out after the first charge lands.
FAQ
Why is Google Play changing its chargeback policy in 2026?
Google Play is shifting responsibility for disputed purchase amounts and chargeback fees from the platform to developers. This reflects a broader industry trend: as platform margins thin, legacy app stores are becoming less willing to absorb payment complexity on behalf of game makers. The same shift has been visible across other platforms and regulatory environments, and Google's move is widely expected to be followed by others.
What does "friendly fraud" mean and why does it matter for game developers?
Friendly fraud refers to cases where a legitimate account holder disputes a purchase they actually made - either intentionally or because they did not recognize the transaction. It is common in gaming, particularly in households with shared devices or child accounts. Because the dispute comes from a real account rather than a stolen card, it is harder to detect and harder to win. Under Google's new policy, developers bear the cost of these disputes even when they have no ability to prevent them.
How is a Merchant of Record different from a standard payment processor?
A payment processor moves money from A to B and manages the technical transaction. A Merchant of Record goes further: it is the legal entity that accepts liability for the transaction - covering taxes, fraud, chargebacks, and compliance on the studio's behalf. The critical variable when evaluating MoR providers is what they do when a chargeback arrives. Most charge the studio a fee and pass back the loss if the defense fails. Tebex absorbs all of it.
Does Tebex's 100% chargeback protection cover all transaction types?
Yes. The protection applies across one-time purchases, subscriptions, in-game microtransactions, and DLC sales. It covers the chargeback fee, the cost of mounting a defense, and the refund to the player if the dispute is lost. Studios keep their revenue in every case, regardless of transaction type or dispute outcome.
What should studios do immediately in response to Google's policy change?
First, audit your ecosystem. If you are selling via webstores or PC platforms alongside mobile, contact those checkout providers and get a written answer on who covers the chargeback fees and refunds when a dispute fails. Second, look at your long-term monetization infrastructure. As mobile platforms pull back on risk coverage, building an independent direct-to-consumer (D2C) webstore backed by 100% chargeback protection - like Tebex - is no longer optional; it’s a core strategy to protect your studio's baseline revenue.