In April, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) warned its members to stay away from the Amazon Appstore because of “significant concerns” it had about the pricing, terms and policies Amazon had in place. And this week, the Appstore was once again in the news after an independent game developer called the store a “disaster” in a scathing blog post filled with complaints.
But are his issues the result of one bad experience or more indicative of an overall broken system? Let us know what you think in this week’s ReadWriteMobile poll.
GigaOm discovered the blog post by CEO Emil Romanus of Bithack, makers of the physics-based game Apparatus, and summarized the complaints as including:
- No device filtering
- Limited Consumer feedback
- Slow review process
- No recourse for incorrect reviews
- Cheap pricing
Even worse, Romanus said that Amazon hadn’t followed up after featuring Apparatus as the Free App of the Day, and hadn’t responded to his request to have the app pulled (at the time of the blog post’s publication). He then warned developers, especially smaller ones, away from the Amazon Appstore entirely, saying he didn’t see any reason why a developer would choose to publish there.
GigaOm noted that other developers have had the opposite experience at the store, and have been very pleased.
So what do you think, developers? Have you used Amazon to promote your apps? And would you recommend the store to others? Let us know in the poll below and in the comments, if you care to elaborate on your experiences.
