& then put this repackaged version in amazon store for a higher price (to protect urself from the 20% policy, such as setting a price that’s 5 times the original price)

this might have a side effect that the consumers might be extremely annoyed at you,
but even if u don’t set the higher price, i think it’s a possible workaround for the promotion things.

(@PlanBForOpenOffice making a new version for each would create an overhead, therefore i think it’s a possible solution to whatever store that implements the same policy)
(note: I’m not up to date with android markets, therefore not really sure how many are there & how much of an overhead will that create)

(but I’m on my way )

I see a simple scenario where Amazon wants to advertise things like 10,000 games 75% off and so choose a lot of small apps and ruin their revenue. And all gains are Amazons’ and the pain is the developers.

But there is one logical way around that. Only publish special versions of your apps on each market. It’s like the [major manufacturer] laptop model/config you can only buy at [major electronics chai]. This makes it an exclusive procut and gets you out of the most favorite price clause that Amazon demands of you. I’d start right at the basic design to have merchant specific variants of each apps.

Although digital products may have no production cost in material, it can be applied as a marketing gifts. Amazon can bundle game to sell real goods. For example, customers can buy $20 book with a game in $0.5 while game’s MSRP is $5. What is the reward of game developers in Amazon’s terms?

Remember Amazon did not guarantee the number of sales of your games in a period of time. That is it does not invest in inventory. This is unlike WalMart which gain rights of price by guarantee purchase. Without guarantee purchase but requires more rights, good deal for somebody but not game developers.

Internet assign developers more power in marketing. No companies can control consumers in the Internet whether they are Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple.

We have seen this game before on a smaller scale. When Palmgear and Handango and the other palm os retailers went to war, they all quickly moved to the best offer that they were allowed to make according to their contract. They were all allowed to discount by 20%, so once every week or two, they just have ’20% off weekends’.

There is zero benefit for the developer here; The stores just compete for market share by squeezing the developer.

Amazon might be playing nice now – but they are asking for way too much power.

The “previously available” language is no longer present.

I wonder how this corresponds to Amazon’s agreements with book publishers, both ebooks and “regular” books. That would be interesting to see.

On opting out of Amazon and creating other game stores — well, the thing is, Amazon is brilliant with regards to how they sell stuff, and they sell a lot of stuff. Shopping with them is a pleasure, both for “physical” objects and electronic objects. Ebook purchasing, if restrictive, is a dream, and all the other stuff around it (people who bought this, bought that, recommendations, user reviews) — it’s wonderful.

The Amazon appstore for Android is in the early stages, but I love going to the appstore to look at Android apps, and of course I’ve gotten some. I love the recommendations, the reviews, the free product of the day, the intelligent way they categorize apps. I love how easy it is to buy and install the apps. The Amazon appstore is something that I look at, on my Motorola Droid, every single day, much more than I look at the Google app store.

As for going to Steam or an IGDA site — for Android stuff — no. I’m one of the people who knows about Steam, and likes it, and knows about and respects IGDA! But, as a consumer, why would I go somewhere else? If I’m buying an Android thing, I want to look at something on my device (for me, my phone), one or perhaps two sites max, and that’s it. Buying something for an Android device is all about the easy, and all about the spontaneous purchase. Unless your game is so well known, I won’t go out of my way to buy it for my Android device — and I’m one of the people who follows games! I’m not everyone, of course, but it is a thought.

The thing is — game developers are brilliant at making games, but at doing all the stuff around games, around getting it onto the consumer’s device — not so much, from what I’ve seen. Some are great of course, but you can’t be great at everything.

This is understandable. Developers do what developers do and Amazon does what it does. They hire very smart people with the education and training to make it great for the consumer. I have no way of knowing whether they focus on the consumer more than the developer, but they sure as heck don’t focus on the consumer less. That’s what they do.

So — my recommendation, for what it’s worth. Keep working with Amazon, to see what makes sense to do. And, of course, kudos to IDGA for doing the research and analysis. I think this is an ongoing story, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

mszv

The strategy of Valve is to sell several products for a single customer.