Infrastructure · Glossary
Also called: Digital Goods: Games MCC
MCC 5816 (Digital Goods: Games) is the merchant category code assigned to merchants selling electronically delivered games and in-game content. Per Visa's Merchant Data Standards it explicitly covers games of skill and excludes games of chance, which places video game and esports merchants outside gambling-specific registration and licensing requirements.
MCC 5816sits inside the broader system of U.S. payment processing economics that determine a merchant’s effective rate. Most operators encounter this term on their merchant statement without understanding what it controls, which is how the four hidden fees covered by our methodology slip past unnoticed.