Why Primer’s payments platform is a game-changer for Eldorado

Gaming is a multi billion-dollar industry, and players worldwide spend billions annually on digital assets to enhance their experiences. 

Eldorado is central to this vibrant ecosystem. It is a leading online marketplace that connects gamers to buy and sell in-game currencies, accounts, items, and services.

Given the importance of payments to its mission of becoming the number one marketplace globally, Eldorado recently appointed Arminas Šimkus as its first dedicated Payments Product Owner.

Here, Arminas describes Eldorado’s role in the in-game industry and how Primer is helping it build trust and reliability by delivering a seamless payment experience.

As Eldorado grows rapidly, what challenges does it face in sustaining and scaling its success?

Eldorado’s goal is to ensure it's quick, easy and secure for our customers to find the best product for their favorite game, make a payment, receive their order, and get back to playing.

Building that security without compromising the customer experience presents challenges. We must also work hard to keep our platform fees as competitive as possible. 

Another challenge is the global nature of the business. We must ensure that we deliver the optimal experience to our customers no matter where they’re based.

How do payments shape Eldorado’s success?

Payments are fundamental to Eldorado’s business, as they directly influence the trust and confidence of buyers and sellers in the in-game assets market. A bad payment experience can lead to mistrust, making it essential for us to provide a secure and reliable payment process that ensures every transaction feels safe.

Efficiency is equally important. A seamless payment process allows customers to quickly complete their purchases and return to enjoying their favorite games.

The challenge was that, until recently, payments were not a dedicated focus—our setup relied on one-off payment service provider (PSP) integrations, which led to a fragmented architecture with no emphasis on optimization. 

Scaling our project internationally poses challenges, such as the many different payment providers used across various world regions. This created a need for multiple PSPs and even more technical integrations, which was hard to do by ourselves but will become much easier with Primer.

What made you think Primer was the right payment partner for your business? 

To make payments a true differentiator for Eldorado, we need a payment stack that is reliable, scalable, and flexible. After a thorough and competitive RFP process, Primer emerged as the ideal partner to help us achieve these goals because it delivers:

• Reliability and redundancy: Minimizing downtime and avoiding reliance on a single PSP are critical to maintaining customer trust and business continuity. Primer makes this possible with its multi-provider setup, ensuring our payment infrastructure remains resilient even if one provider encounters issues.

• Scalability: Expanding into new regions quickly and efficiently can be challenging, but Primer simplifies the process. Its single integration connects multiple regions, eliminating the need for countless direct integrations. This approach reduces complexity, accelerates time-to-market, and keeps our payment architecture clean and manageable.

• Flexibility and optimization: Primer’s payment workflows let us build advanced routing capabilities with ease, while tools like Fallbacks allow us to retry failed transactions in milliseconds. This improves our overall performance and ensures a seamless experience for our customers.

• Operational efficiencies: Its user-friendly design empowers teams beyond just payments. For instance, our finance team plans to use Primer for improved analysis and enhanced reporting, driving better outcomes across the board.‍

• Expert support: Primer’s commitment to collaboration was evident during the RFP process. The team went above and beyond, dedicating time to engage with us, explain the platform in detail, share insights into ongoing improvements, and demonstrate their expertise and customer-first mindset. It felt like a true partnership from the start.

Several other providers looked to win your business with lower pricing. How did you work with your CFO to justify choosing Primer over cheaper options?

Primer was still competitive, but you’re right; it wasn’t the cheapest option. But it wasn’t a hard sell internally. Payments are so critical that we wanted to be the best provider, not the cheapest. And Primer’s solution and people make it the best solution on the market today. 

What are your main goals as you go live with Primer, and how will they impact your business?

We’ll launch with card transactions and direct integrations for Google Pay and Apple Pay initially before exploring additional payment methods. We’ll also set up more complex payment routing and use tools like network tokens and Fallbacks to optimize payment successor rates.

Get in touch to learn how Primer can help make payments a strategic growth level in your business.