Globally, there are 67.2 million mobile gamers who spend big on mobile games each month. In the US, 6.7 percent of all mobile gamers spend more than $25 per month on or in mobile games. Here's what you need to know to target this elusive group more widely and successfully.

From free tools to innovative monetization opportunities, Amazon Developer Day at GDC 2017 was the A2Z for developer success on a shoestring budget. If you missed our developer day you can watch the sessions on our YouTube channel.

Crafting Promotions That Work

Lately, we have been sharing tips and tricks for developing an effective push notification strategy, from adding personal elements to your message to timing its delivery for maximum impact. In many ways, these are the easy parts. The hardest part is often the writing process itself. As a frequent contributor to the Amazon Developer Blog, I can relate! So today, I wanted to share some of my tips for finding—and keeping—creative inspiration.

Our annual Amazon Developer Day at GDC is only two days away. From free tools to innovative monetization opportunities, Amazon Developer Day at GDC 2017 is the A2Z for developer success on a shoestring budget.

We kick off the morning with Amazon Appstore Developer Evangelist, Mike Hines, sharing tips for creating promotions that work and wrap the day up hearing from King.com on how to reduce time and effort to operate games on multiple platforms at once. You also won’t want to miss our lunchtime panel, How to Survive and Thrive on No Budget.

Missing out on GDC 2017 can mean missing out on great swag. If you can’t make it this year, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered!

We are offering a free limited edition Amazon Developer Day hoodie to U.S. based developers who publish an eligible app or game between February 6, 2017, and March 6, 2017.

Here’s what you missed last week on the Amazon Developer blog:

We love our Amazon Developer Evangelists! Unfortunately we hardly get to see them because they are traversing the globe, on a quest to connect with all of the brilliant developers out there and talk about their favorite subject: app and game development! Here’s where you can find them this February: 

We understand that managing and scaling user acquisition (UA) is the number one pain point for free-to-play (F2P) developers. And, in the current F2P climate, where a small number of juggernaut publishers dominate the app store charts, scaling a game beyond a few thousand installs can seem daunting.

Until recently, it was common for organic installs to outperform paid installs as the level of targeting was poor. But, as paid UA has improved dramatically in the last few years, we needed to find out: Are paid installs worth the investment?

Here’s what you missed last week on the Amazon Developer blog:

• Why a Custom Slot is the Literal Solution
• Join Us for Our 2017 GDC Amazon Developer Day
• With Alexa, Just Eat Delivers Your Favorite Flavors with Just a Few Words
• Indie Favorites Showcase - January

Join Amazon Appstore and AWS for our annual Amazon Developer Day at GDC on February 27th, 2017. We will be discussing everything from API Integration, monetization, publishing, game analytics and promotion best practices with an incredible line up of speakers, including Amazon evangelists and industry thought leaders from Snowplow, king.com, Linden Lab, TinyBuild Games and Adult Swim. Amazon Developer Day is part of the official GDC programming, so if you are attending GDC make sure to check out our full list of talks:

Here’s what you missed last week on the Amazon Developer blog:

Webinar: Integrating Amazon APIs in Unity

If you are one of the millions of developers who create apps and games with Unity every day or are considering developing with Unity, you won’t want to miss our latest free webinar—Integrating Amazon APIs in Unity—hosted by Peter Heinrich on Tuesday January 31st. Reserve your spot now!

According to the Newzoo 2016 Global Mobile Market Report, the average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) on the Amazon Appstore is $23.40, 3.2 percent higher than the Android average.

With non-game app categories expected to reach $22.5Bn globally by 2020 (a 30.2% Compound Annual Growth Rate), the report suggests that these non-game publishers should look to mobile game publishers for insights on monetization strategies and metrics (ARPPU, conversion and retention rates).

Here’s what you missed last week on the Amazon Developer blog:

Announcing the Winners of the Amazon Alexa API Mashup Contest

Winners of the Amazon Alexa API Mashup Contest were announced early in the week. The contest challenged developers to connect their favorite public APIs to Alexa and attracted 163 projects. Congratulations to our winners in both the Most Creative and Most Useful categories.

We love our Amazon Developer Evangelists! Unfortunately we hardly get to see them because they are traversing the globe, on a quest to connect with all of the brilliant developers out there and talk about their favorite subject: development! Here’s where you can find them this January:[Read More]

Last week on the Amazon Developer blog, we shared highlights from out 2017 CES announcements including:

• New in-car Alexa integrations with Volkswagen and Ford.
• Nucleus’s Display Cards for Alexa, offering on-screen visual content to complement Alexa Voice Service voice responses.
• A new line of 4K Ultra HD smart TVs powered by Fire TV.
• LG Smart InstaView Refrigerator now with Amazon Alexa.
• Hands-free, voice-controlled TV through DISH by pairing a Hopper DVR with the Amazon Echo or Echo Dot.