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Amazon does however have an incentive to maximize revenue and there is a lower bound to what a developer gets (a percentage of the list price), even if Amazon p

Amazon does however have an incentive to maximize revenue and there is a lower bound to what a developer gets (a percentage of the list price), even if Amazon promotes it for free, so Amazon loses money on that. I think Amazon is better at optimizing pricing than most game developers are, so I expect this to improve revenue for both Amazon and the game developers. But only time will tell for sure. Panicking is not the right response.

_delirium 16y ago
I can believe that if Amazon were sticking to terms for its own market, but Amazon is attempting to prohibit anyone who sells through its market from simultaneously trying other pricing strategies in other channels. That seems more like a classic attempt at using market power in one channel to coerce behavior in other channels, rather than competing on the product's actual strength (unlike Google or even Apple).
- metageek 16y ago
  It's exactly like Apple's rule for in-app purchases.
  - itg 16y ago
    The rules Amazon has in place are much worse than what Apple requires.
    - metageek 16y ago
      Yes, but the "must match" rule is what I was talking about.
- jonknee 16y ago
  You can try other pricing strategies, it's just that you need to give Amazon the lowest list price. No different than Apple really, requiring your in-app content to match the lowest pricing available. Amazon and [to a much greater extent] Wal-Mart play these games with physical goods too. It's just you never get to read the terms and big distributors don't complain publicly.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    You do hear complaints from smaller publishers a lot w.r.t. physical goods, and their troubles are one reason I hope this doesn't catch on. They're left with the poor choice of selling through booksellers, or selling direct to consumers at a reasonable price, but can't do both. If their break-even price is, say, $8, then they might want to sell it for list $9.99. But then Amazon wants it for $5 wholesale (half list), which would be a loss per book. To sell it to Amazon for at least $9 (a $1 profit), they have to set the list price at $18. But now that's too high for how they want to price it on their own www.publishersite.com online store, and they aren't allowed to discount it back down to the $9.99 they actually want to charge. So you have a weird situation where as a condition of selling on Amazon, they aren't allowed to sell outside Amazon for a reasonable markup above cost!
    - jrockway 16y ago
      Can't you just give people 50% off coupons?
  - irons 16y ago
    No different than Apple really, requiring your in-app content to match the lowest pricing available. IGDA says the Amazon terms limit you to the lowest price "available or previously available on any Similar Service" — it's the "previously available" that's the sticking point. Tweetbot is having a $2.00 introductory sale on the iOS App Store, where the price will eventually go up. If Tapbots were foolish enough to do an Amazon version, they'd be constrained to offer that price forever. Absurd.
    - jonknee 16y ago
      I don't think Tweetbot would have any trouble launching at whatever list price they wanted on Amazon. Amazon isn't selling iOS apps so the Apple App Store isn't a similar service. Google's Android Market would be though.
      - irons 16y ago
bmelton 16y ago
That's definitely true in the long term, but while I don't believe that Amazon is necessarily going to abuse the power they ask for just because they have it, heavily discounting apps at the developer's expense is a great way to get traction for a new app market that most people haven't heard of. For many of the discounted apps, those that depend on the purchase revenue (vs. ad-based) and that might be fad, or temporarily popular, this could effectively kill them off in the name of helping Amazon.

_delirium 16y ago

I can believe that if Amazon were sticking to terms for its own market, but Amazon is attempting to prohibit anyone who sells through its market from simultaneously trying other pricing strategies in other channels. That seems more like a classic attempt at using market power in one channel to coerce behavior in other channels, rather than competing on the product's actual strength (unlike Google or even Apple).

metageek 16y ago
It's exactly like Apple's rule for in-app purchases.
- itg 16y ago
  The rules Amazon has in place are much worse than what Apple requires.
  - metageek 16y ago
    Yes, but the "must match" rule is what I was talking about.
jonknee 16y ago
You can try other pricing strategies, it's just that you need to give Amazon the lowest list price. No different than Apple really, requiring your in-app content to match the lowest pricing available. Amazon and [to a much greater extent] Wal-Mart play these games with physical goods too. It's just you never get to read the terms and big distributors don't complain publicly.
- _delirium 16y ago
  You do hear complaints from smaller publishers a lot w.r.t. physical goods, and their troubles are one reason I hope this doesn't catch on. They're left with the poor choice of selling through booksellers, or selling direct to consumers at a reasonable price, but can't do both. If their break-even price is, say, $8, then they might want to sell it for list $9.99. But then Amazon wants it for $5 wholesale (half list), which would be a loss per book. To sell it to Amazon for at least $9 (a $1 profit), they have to set the list price at $18. But now that's too high for how they want to price it on their own www.publishersite.com online store, and they aren't allowed to discount it back down to the $9.99 they actually want to charge. So you have a weird situation where as a condition of selling on Amazon, they aren't allowed to sell outside Amazon for a reasonable markup above cost!
  - jrockway 16y ago
    Can't you just give people 50% off coupons?
- irons 16y ago
  No different than Apple really, requiring your in-app content to match the lowest pricing available. IGDA says the Amazon terms limit you to the lowest price "available or previously available on any Similar Service" — it's the "previously available" that's the sticking point. Tweetbot is having a $2.00 introductory sale on the iOS App Store, where the price will eventually go up. If Tapbots were foolish enough to do an Amazon version, they'd be constrained to offer that price forever. Absurd.
  - jonknee 16y ago
    I don't think Tweetbot would have any trouble launching at whatever list price they wanted on Amazon. Amazon isn't selling iOS apps so the Apple App Store isn't a similar service. Google's Android Market would be though.
    - irons 16y ago

bmelton 16y ago

That's definitely true in the long term, but while I don't believe that Amazon is necessarily going to abuse the power they ask for just because they have it, heavily discounting apps at the developer's expense is a great way to get traction for a new app market that most people haven't heard of. For many of the discounted apps, those that depend on the purchase revenue (vs. ad-based) and that might be fad, or temporarily popular, this could effectively kill them off in the name of helping Amazon.