Why is Amazon making social games, you ask? Good question! We know that many Amazon customers enjoy playing games – including free-to-play social games – and thanks to Amazon's know-how, we believe we can deliver a great, accessible gaming experience that gamers and our customers can play any time.
Translation: We need more ways to extract money from our customers. People throw bags of money at social game makers, so we'll do that too and add in a blurb about our experience so our customers will think we've really thought this through.
At this point I would think we all expect something ground-breaking or at least exciting from Amazon with any announcement they make. An Amazon game studio with a launch game that consists of "social" picture hunts is definitely not what I expected when I visited the link. Disappointing.
I think Amazon's general strategy is to never surprise its customers. That's good for retail and low-end tech. Probably it's also good for cheap games. Where I think they'll have trouble is in more cutting edge type stuff but I don't see them entering into something like that any time soon.
Their game studio has been in development for years (I interviewed with them when they were already on their way, close to two years ago), way before the Fire came out. But yeah, it seems like a bad decision not to at least port their games to their own system too.
This seems like a misstep to me. Amazon is a conduit for content to be bought and sold - it shouldn't create content itself. Now, a game platform I could totally understand.
I never got this attitude. "They are expanding beyond their core base, they shouldn't do that!" Why, exactly, this is the case mystifies me. A) Amazon is a better judge than anyone on what they can or cannot do, let alone should and shouldn't. B) Diversification is simply good business. C) Amazon is not expanding into drastically new markets. If anything, their initial jump into selling software (AWS) was a riskier proposition because it was unlike anything Amazon had done before, and a relatively untried business.
Finally: People scoffed at the iPod and iPhone when they came out; it wasn't Apple's business to go into consumer electronics or even telecoms. The Michelin Tires company produces the most widely respected restaurant guide. Clearly, someone should have put a stop to them - they shouldn't have done that.
Much like Bic is the maker for cheap, plastic tools (pens, razors, lighters), I don't see why Amazon can't continue to write software. There is virtually no risk and minimal investment.
Apple has already made huge inroads to content production already by starting their book publishing house. For better or worse, this is a logical extension of that strategy.
You don't think they were already dipping their toes in these waters with their book publishing programs? What about Amazon Studios, which is funding film making?
While a change of direction, I don't think it's an abrupt one. Amazon has been slowly drifting toward creating their own content for a while now.
Methinks this is some high-up executive's pet project. How else would Amazon decide to make a social game that doesn't run on Android, a platform they're quite invested in, or HTML5, and a moving-item game, no less?
A different possible motivation for this just occurred to me: Maybe Amazon is getting tired of paying out affiliate fees, and is envisioning this as an in-house advertising channel?
Amazon is really building an advertising and tracking ecosystem with it's store, it's tablets(and maybe smartphones) and it's tracked browser, it's video service and it's groupon clone and now this social game.
Online direct advertising is great but: Online advertising haven't had much success in brand advertising. having control of a big advertising ecosystem together with complete knowledge of the consumer in store behavior lets you measure the long term connection between a highly targeted ad and in-store behavior later on. Basically solving online brand advertising.
Having such a huge advantage could be a powerful weapon for amazon against brick and mortar stores.
[+] [-] j_baker|13 years ago|reply
Translation: We need more ways to extract money from our customers. People throw bags of money at social game makers, so we'll do that too and add in a blurb about our experience so our customers will think we've really thought this through.
[+] [-] bazookaBen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sulife|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chucknelson|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rgbrgb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smashing|13 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Appstore-Android-Game-App...
[+] [-] jc4p|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benwerd|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duaneb|13 years ago|reply
Finally: People scoffed at the iPod and iPhone when they came out; it wasn't Apple's business to go into consumer electronics or even telecoms. The Michelin Tires company produces the most widely respected restaurant guide. Clearly, someone should have put a stop to them - they shouldn't have done that.
Much like Bic is the maker for cheap, plastic tools (pens, razors, lighters), I don't see why Amazon can't continue to write software. There is virtually no risk and minimal investment.
[+] [-] wtracy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghshephard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] commandar|13 years ago|reply
While a change of direction, I don't think it's an abrupt one. Amazon has been slowly drifting toward creating their own content for a while now.
[+] [-] aasarava|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uvTwitch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shinratdr|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wtracy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ippisl|13 years ago|reply
Amazon is really building an advertising and tracking ecosystem with it's store, it's tablets(and maybe smartphones) and it's tracked browser, it's video service and it's groupon clone and now this social game.
Online direct advertising is great but: Online advertising haven't had much success in brand advertising. having control of a big advertising ecosystem together with complete knowledge of the consumer in store behavior lets you measure the long term connection between a highly targeted ad and in-store behavior later on. Basically solving online brand advertising.
Having such a huge advantage could be a powerful weapon for amazon against brick and mortar stores.
[+] [-] Robby2012|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chii|13 years ago|reply
There is money in social games (as far as the PHB can see from zynga). Amazon has an amazing cloud platform that these games can execute from.
I totally understand the move.
[+] [-] notatoad|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wilfra|13 years ago|reply
http://www.geekwire.com/2011/amazons-bezos-innovation/
[+] [-] thinkingisfun|13 years ago|reply
also, "social"? either it's multiplayer or it's not.
[+] [-] kilian|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thinkingisfun|13 years ago|reply