Seattle-based gamemaker PopCap Games announced today that it has struck a deal with Amazon to offer its next two Android games – Chuzzle and Plants vs Zombies – exclusively via the Amazon Appstore.
Chuzzle goes on sale beginning tomorrow and Plants vs Zombies for Android will be available later in the month. The games will be free for the first day of their release, after which they’ll be available to purchase for $2.99 each.
The Amazon Appstore’s exclusivity will only last two weeks, after which time the games will be available elsewhere, presumably via the Android Market.
The release of these two games, particularly the popular Plants vs. Zombies title, is another mobile gaming win for Amazon, which launched in late March with an exclusive (and free) Angry Birds Rio game.
Since then, the Amazon Appstore has offered a free app every day, in an attempt to get Android users to use its curated store rather than the official Android Market.
But not everyone has been pleased with the new Amazon store. The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) issued a warning to mobile app developers saying that it had “significant concerns” about the distribution terms, pricing policies and discounting practices that Amazon uses.
No doubt, with a well-known game like Plants vs Zombies, PopCap’s concerns might be different than indie game developers. PopCap Games contends that by making its games available via the Amazon Appstore, it will help extend its reach to new customers and gaming fans. “Our relationship with Amazon is pivotal to PopCap’s overall strategy in bringing a growing roster of mobile titles to the ever-widening base of smartphone users,” says Giordano Bruno Contestabile, PopCap’s senior director of global product and business strategy for mobile.
By having this sort of popular and exclusive gaming content in its Appstore, Amazon is also showing a strong business strategy for getting Android users to buy their apps there.
