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Amazon Indie Game Store - Has anyone been successful with it?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Chris_Johnson, Dec 17, 2014.

  1. Chris_Johnson

    Chris_Johnson

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    Nov 18, 2014
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    Hey everyone,

    I just finished developing a game with Unity and it's up on the Amazon Indie Store for $2. I was wondering if anyone here has done this and if so, if you've made anything? It seems cool since they randomly pick games to be listed on the home page which gives the smallest of indie devs a chance. Am I being realistic or just optimistic to expect some profit even if it's a small amount.

    Thoughts?

    How about Google Play? Would the $25 dev fee for the Google Play Store be worth it?
     
  2. SteveJ

    SteveJ

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    Are you just talking about the general Amazon app store, or is there a specific store they have for Indie games?
     
  3. Chris_Johnson

    Chris_Johnson

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    Meltdown likes this.
  4. mbowen89

    mbowen89

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    I'm confused. I already have 2 Android games on the Amazon appstore for example, do I have to submit it differently for the "indie game store"? How do I let them know I am an Indie company?
     
  5. Chris_Johnson

    Chris_Johnson

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    I don't know. Did you try logging into 'http://developer.amazon.com/' -> "Services for Game Developers"? Your game might already be there. If not, then you'll probably need to add them via that CP and contact Amazon to find out what's the difference.

    Anyways, back to the topic at hand, have you been successful Bowen?
     
  6. mbowen89

    mbowen89

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    Yes, I make decent money on the Amazon App Store with my 2 games. Doesn't really compare to Google Play or iTunes though, but enough to be worth it for sure.

    Edit: I just realized that the indie store is for PC/Mac games, not the apps. I've been thinking how I can sell a PC version of my game, and I think that would be perfect, the Amazon Indie store!
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2014
  7. Chris_Johnson

    Chris_Johnson

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    What have you done to get your games noticed/found? If any.

    It seems like it's too good to be true to just simply make a game, upload it, and sit back. I've made multiple attempts at games and I keep failing due to marketing.

    So I assume you would recommend me to pay the $25 Google Play fee and get my game on Google Play? So in the end I'll have the PC version on Amazon and an Android version on both Google Play and Amazon.
     
  8. mbowen89

    mbowen89

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    I have pretty niche games so that really helped. I would publish on all stores for every platform you can.
     
  9. Ony

    Ony

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    I had a game up in the Amazon store for about a month and did ok with it. Then I sold the game to a new owner and needed to take the game down from the Amazon store so he could put it up under his own business account instead of mine.

    It took about 8 emails to Amazon, and finally one fairly aggressive one, to get them to finally respond and remove my listed one from their store. That's 8 emails with no response except a form letter. It took them almost two months to take it down. In the mean time, the new owner's listing was up and it was confusing, because some people were buying mine and some his. That definitely made me think twice about listing anything on there. Once it's up, it's up, and good luck getting them to respond to you or take it down if you need it down. The money I made from it was hardly worth the frustration.
     
    Meltdown, schmosef and Aiursrage2k like this.
  10. SaltwaterAssembly

    SaltwaterAssembly

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    Curious, if you submit a windows game to Amazon indi, do you have to have it already packed up with an installer, or does it install via Amazon (somehow). Have never released for windows before, so uncertain how it works in this regard.
     
  11. Meltdown

    Meltdown

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    Does this Amazon Indie store for PC games support Microtransactions, or is it only premium games?
     
  12. Not_Sure

    Not_Sure

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    I've heard that it's a mixed bag.

    On one hand, it's much easier to get noticed since the market is smaller.

    But on the other, I heard that since the market is so small success can be very limited.

    Personally, I don't see why anyone wouldn't release to all markets possible simply because it increases your exposure and exposure compounds exponentially.
     
  13. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    I think it will improve if they really want to keep it running and start becoming more popular.
    One more publishing possibility platform is always a plus.
     
  14. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Each additional market typically requires its own build with tweaks. Then you need to deploy to each market. Then you need to update each market every time there is a bug. Then their is split communities to deal with. And accounting to track from everywhere. You can end up spending a lot of time supporting a bunch of markets.

    It's definetly worth considering putting all that effort into growing one market, instead of maintaining a dozen.
     
    Not_Sure, SaltwaterAssembly and Ryiah like this.
  15. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    I don't think people will publish in more than 2 or 3 markets for desktop games.
    Once you have published in a market, the updates are about pushing a new package version, you have your own build process already established for each market.