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."

Competition

[pablo_max]

Here is the big difference with Android and Apple. Competition. There are other stores you can sell your crap in when you dont like the terms of one.

Resistance is futile

[pmontra]

The problem is that somebody will be lured by Amazon brand, their shop will become big and drive prices down toward zero. Economics always win and this is probably a necessary consequence of the very nature of computer programs. I explain:

1. We know that software can be copied at almost no cost, just like digitalized music, books and movies.
2. We also know that digitalization made music prices plummet and that artists are looking for new business models (maybe they should learn from their grand-grandparents 100+ years ago, before recorded music).
3. That's going to happen to books and movies (majors are trying to save themselves with 3D and other stuff difficult to reproduce at home).
4. It is only natural that it happens to computer programs.

We should prepare for a world where our products will be exchanged for free or a price near to zero. So how are we going to pay our bills? The only answers for most of us is custom software development. Luckily this is what I did for the last 18 years so I'm in a good position. You're also in a good position for some time if you sell Photoshop or Excel, but they have already lowly priced competitors that are good for many people. Even Windows will suffer: people will progressively move from the desktop to the mobile and desktop OSes will share the same fate with mainframe OSes, still alive but interesting only for some professionals (and the day will come that even Apple will stop tying its phones to a desktop OS) .

Re:Hold up a sec....

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course we all get it. But the point here is that Amazon can use it as a weapon on game developers expense. Imagine if they suddenly start giving away tons of free games and just do whatever it takes to customers leave their old stores and start using Amazon's.. I'm all fine for Amazon trying to capture market share as much as possible, but not on developers expense like that.

Re:Competition

[clang_jangle]

Come to think of it, it's far worse than that. Most people won't even have the sense to worry about the code being what it claims to be, so the default state of a non-geek owned android device will be pwned.

Re:Resistance is futile

[poetmatt]

Is this supposed to be a problem though? I don't really see it as one, honestly.

It's called: here is your market, you make money this way -> X

and then becomes: your market has changed, your old way of making money is now free, find a new way.

nothing really problematic, that's just a market shift.

Re:Not available outside the US

[getNewNickName]

Amazon wants to trumpet download numbers for their appstore app for some press release, so they let foreign users download the app whether or not they can actually access any content.

Re:Basic business understanding failure

[MMORG]

All that has to happen is a developer doesn't give away the game and this never happens. I don't see the problem here at all. I should also mention that I have noticed huge numbers of apps that go on sale at a discount when first released then a few weeks later the price goes up. So I'm not sure I even see their point here at all when it seems this is an industry standard.

I think you didn't read the article carefully enough. The point is that that the developer surrenders essentially all control over their own pricing when they put something in the Amazon store. Amazon can just unilaterally tell you, "Oh, by the way, we're giving away your app this month. Don't like it? Tough." Now, yes, Amazon still has to give you a little bit of money in that case, but the definition of "a little bit" is pretty darn small: 20% of the list price, where the list price *must* be the lowest price you've ever sold your content at, ever, anywhere.

The point isn't that Amazon might engage in volume-based pricing strategies. Yes, times are changing and old retailing strategies don't always work. The point is that when you put your app in the Amazon store you surrender any ability to make your own decisions about your pricing strategy. Instead you hand your pricing strategy to another party who has very different goals than you do and will likely choose a pricing strategy that will optimize for their goals, not for your goals. If you're ok with that, then fine. But be aware of what's going to happen.