Today we announced the availability of Free-to-Play store in Germany.. If you have built a PC, Mac or Browser-based game, you may be want to list your game and in-game items on our new Free-to-Play store in Germany. Doing so will get your game in front of millions of potential customers in Germany and Austria.

After you set up your game and in-game items for sale, they will be surfaced in Amazon’s personalization and recommendation widgets. 

Customers can enjoy the convenience of purchasing in-game currencies, starter packs, characters, etc. using their Amazon accounts. For German and Austrian customers, this means they can use their bank accounts (Girokonto) or their credit cards to purchase.

With this announcement, we are releasing our App Commerce SDK, which enables customers to create an account with your game right from Amazon.de. Customers can then send in-game currency or virtual goods directly to their game account.  Included in the App Commerce SDK is our In-App Purchasing API for PC, Mac and Web-based games. This API allows customers to purchase virtual goods from your in-game storefront using their Amazon accounts.

To get your game and in-game items in front of millions of customers in the US, UK, and now Germany and Austria, go to the Free-to-Play store developer page to learn more. You can also contact Amazon at find-more-gamers@amazon.com for more information and to publish your Free-to-Play game on Amazon.

On July 9th, the Amazon Apps UK team was very pleased to present at Develop Brighton, one the leading events for the burgeoning UK games community, attended by over 1,600 games industry professionals from CEO’s to Student developers.

On one of the hottest days of the year, Matt Hatherly from the UK Apps team and I enjoyed meeting so many games developers the Hilton Metropole, at the Hotel Du Vin and on Brighton’s famous beach.

During our presentation we took the opportunity to share insights on how to develop, market and monetize mobile games that use In App Purchasing. 

The theme of our talk was that Games publishing is evolving from an art to a science, as so much more data is now available. We shared a number of tips & insights on how to monetize Freemium games, including:

1.     The more time you can keep customers engaged the more money you’ll make.

• If you create a purchasing hook early on in the game you will take advantage of customers who want to spend on day one
• Give customers a reason to come back by providing lots of content, depth and regular updates – Customers that come back, come back time and again and carry on spending not only days but weeks after the first download

2.     Finessing your range, selection and pricing of IAP items and the way you communicate to customers makes a big difference to monetization.

• The more IAP items you offer for sale, the more orders you will get
• Games with tutorials monetize much better than those without
• The way you merchandise IAP items also makes a big difference – if you merchandise IAP items like a catalogue (with tiles for each item) your app will monetize better

Thousands of UK based game developers have added their Apps to the Amazon Appstore, including hit Freemium titles from Developers including New Star Games (New Star Soccer), Endemic ( Plague), Stick Sports (Stick Sports Cricket), and we look forward to welcoming many more to the store. 

The UK team will be participating in more Developer events during the course of the year and we hope to connect with more of the UK Games community then.

The UK Amazon Mobile App Distribution Program team was delighted to host its first developer meet-up for London’s thriving tech community with the outstanding team at The Skills Matter Exchange in Clerkenwell. Developers and publishers P2 Games, Deluxe Media Europe, Miniclip, and Future Games of London provided insight into the strategies that have made them successful. They shared a lot of fantastic tips on how to design, build, and distribute apps and games in the UK (and the nearly 200 other countries we support worldwide).

Peter Sleeman, Director of P2 Games, was first to break cover in what was to become an insightful and energetic Q&A session. For Peter, creating great digital content is the first key to success.

“At P2 Games, we hold the license for Peppa the Pig, but even if you don’t hold the license for a popular character, content is king. Build a great app or game with great content and customers will discover it.”

So once you have a great app, what next? You might get 5-star reviews and your Twitter feed might be blowing up with the buzz, but developers don’t work pro bono, right? Well, Henry Bennett from Deluxe Media Europe, makers of seminal British TV show apps Catch Phrase and Bullseye, has good news.

“Amazon is a key distribution platform for our apps. The platform offers our apps high visibility in terms of promotional space along with very good monetization. Amazon has now become our second most profitable distribution platform.”

Quick to second this was Saad Choudri of Miniclip fame, creators of Extreme Skating HD, Fragger, and iStunt. He said:

“Amazon has been a strong partner for Miniclip. The revenue return we have seen through Amazon means that it is important for developers to consider Amazon in their launch strategy.”

Future Games of London, makers of the successful Hungry Shark series, were represented by Ian Harper. Ian discussed what’s required technically to generate revenue, highlighting the Amazon platform because it monetizes well and is easy to develop for. Besides supporting standard Android apps, it also provides a suite of developer tools.

“Amazon offers excellent developer tools, robust APIs, and strong monetization”.

Once the formalities had concluded, we ensured everyone had some food and a refreshing beverage. Ninety minutes of frenzied networking ensued, with the good and the bad, the wise and the young furiously chomping down on some excellent pizza, swigging beer, and trying to find a spare hand to pass a business card whenever possible. This was briefly interrupted for the moment that everyone had been waiting for… drum roll… and the winner is… “Would Tom Mleko of Dataspin.io like to make his way to the stage? You are the lucky winner of a Kindle Fire HD 8.9”.

We’ll be doing plenty more of these events and look forward to seeing you there soon!

You may have seen the news that our store is expanding to nearly 200 countries. As we grow, we continue to focus on developer success around the world. We’ll be spotlighting developers from countries in which we operate here on our blog over the next few months.  First, we take you to the UK, where just six months after the launch of the store on Kindle Fire in October 2012, British developers and publishers are already seeing some impressive results.

Kent-based P2 Games publishes titles based on popular children’s character licenses, including Peppa Pig (the UK’s leading pre-school franchise), Fireman Sam, and Bob the Builder.  P2 Games was already successful before Kindle Fire launched in the UK, but saw sales quickly grow once the store launched in their home market. 

Peter Sleeman, Director of P2 Games, spoke with us about the success they are experiencing on Amazon.  As he notes, ‘’The popular children’s brands we build apps for were already well-represented on Amazon. For example, they sell Peppa Pig products across multiple product categories, such as Toys, Books, Video Games, and DVDs. It made sense to try to reach these same customers with our apps, particularly given the Kindle Fire is such a family-friendly device. Through our conversations with Amazon, we were aware of the demand for our apps, information gleaned from customers’ actively searching for Peppa Pig titles.’’

Although P2’s Peppa Pig Apps have already been downloaded more than one million times since launching in September 2010, they achieved some terrific results just months after the launch of our store in the UK. 

Peter Sleeman continues, ‘’We launched our first Kindle Fire version in January 2013 and within a few weeks we saw sales on Amazon overtake Google Play by a factor of four or five times. Kindle Fire is now a legitimate contender, and although our apps have been out much longer on iOS formats, our current rate of sale is close to parity with iOS most days in the UK. The launch of our newest paid Android app, Peppa Pig Party Time, in March 2013 has followed in the footsteps of previous titles and is proving very successful. ’’

For P2 Games, these results have changed the way they develop for Android.  Peter told us that, ‘’Our success on the Kindle Fire has been game-changing; our Android development efforts now lead with the Kindle Fire version. We’re really excited to have a number of our other key titles in development for release on Kindle Fire later this year.’’

Publishers like P2 Games tell us that one of the reasons they are turning to Amazon is because it monetizes so well. P2 Games is just one of thousands of UK-based developers and publishers that have already experienced the value of connecting with Amazon customers on mobile devices, and are reaping the rewards of distributing apps on Kindle Fire.  Developers benefit when customers find the apps that interest them through behavioral recommendations and buy ‘friction free’ through 1-Click purchase.