Game Developer Group Warns Against Amazon Appstore

The International Game Developers Association has posted a warning to the game development community about the Amazon Appstore's distribution terms, detailing several unfavorable situations possible under the rules and saying, "Amazon has little incentive not to use a developer's content as a weapon with which to capture marketshare from competing app stores." "Amazon does not need the terms it has established for itself in order to give away a free app every day. Nor does it need the powers it has granted itself to execute a wide variety of price promotions. Other digital games platforms, such as Xbox LIVE Arcade and Steam, manage to run effective promotions very frequently without employing these terms. Amazon may further argue that its success depends on the success of its development partners, and therefore, that it would never abuse the terms of its distribution agreement. Given that Amazon can (and currently does) function perfectly well without these terms in other markets, it is unclear why game developers should take a leap of faith on Amazon’s behalf. Such leaps are rarely rewarded once a retailer achieves dominance."

Comments

Re:Hold up a sec....

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of wading through the Dev License you could always RTFA. Amazon can charge whatever they want, but they have to pay the dev the greater of 20% of the list price or 70% of the purchase price. So if you list your game at $5 and Amazon gives it away for free, you get 20% of list or $1. If they sell it for $5, then you get 70% of purchase or $3.50. It's not wholly unreasonable, and nothing is forcing you to sell through them. The fact of the matter is you have to make compromises if you want to sell anything on Amazon. They have huge distribution, so they can force manufacturers to give them huge discounts, which is how they're so successful. Or did you think that Amazon payed full price for the surround sound system you bought from them at a 25% discount over everyone else, and they just give you the great deal out of the goodness of their heart.

Re:Basic business understanding failure

[circusboy]

But at least at iTunes, each developer is the one mucking with the price, for their own benefit/loss/risk. The amazon method is to muck with the price of the product whether or not the developer wants them too, primarily for amazon's benefit/loss/risk.