Fire TV is the perfect platform to showcase your Android game in a whole new way: through the home theater. With a Qualcomm quad-core Krait 300 CPU, Adreno 320 GPU, 2 GB RAM, Dolby Digital Plus Certified surround sound, and support for multiple game controllers, Amazon Fire TV packs a lot of power and features into a small package.

Game Catalog Growing Fast

Some of the most entertaining and recognizable game titles are already available on Fire TV, with more favorites launching every day. Shiny Box recently released a Fire TV version of its hit role-playing game Dungeon Quest, as did Disney with Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse. Other game makers, large and small, are also bringing their best games to the new device. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar Games), The Wolf Among Us (Telltale Games), SoulCraft (MobileBits), The Bard’s Tale (inExile Entertainment), and Transworld Endless Skater (SuperVillian Studios) are just a few examples.

Huge Potential

It’s no wonder Fire TV is generating excitement among game developers. Fire TV offers a unique opportunity to reach more customers, making your games accessible on the largest and most prominent screen in the home. The high-performance Fire TV hardware is designed to make your game’s “ten-foot experience” look, feel, and sound great.

Built-in support for up to four game controllers (with extended support for up to seven) lets you engage the whole family in your multiplayer game. Add an alternative “second screen” interface to your game for an even richer and more immersive multiplayer experience.

Fire TV also supports Whispersync for Games, so you can ensure player progress is always safe and synchronized. Players can pick up your game right where they left off, even if they started playing on some other device, like a phone or tablet.

Easy Development

Fire TV is built on Android, so creating games for the living room is as comfortable and familiar as the mobile development you do today. Optimizing an existing Android game for Fire TV is also straightforward, so you can get the most out of the hardware—and guarantee the best player experience—with little effort. It’s easy to get started.

See our online documentation for information and tips on programming for the Fire TV remote and game controllers, ensuring your game will look its best on an HD TV, and using ADB to debug your APK with Fire TV. You can also learn about responsive game design, which makes it possible to develop games that scale across desktop, mobile, and TV.

Games and More

Games aren’t the only apps to benefit from Fire TV’s raw horsepower and programming flexibility. Music, Photography, News & Weather, Sports, and Entertainment are just a few of the categories growing fast as app developers expand into the living room. MLB.TV (MLB Advanced Media) and WWE Network (WWE) are excellent examples of mobile apps looking great for the 10-foot experience.

Take the Next Step

Fire TV has the power to make your Android games shine on the big (home) screen; take advantage of the opportunity to publish them directly to the living room. Check out our online documentation and blog posts about developing for Fire TV.

-peter (@peterdotgames)

Ready to test your app on the Amazon Fire TV? This video shows you how to enable the device for ADB debugging and side load your app. You can learn more about developing for the Amazon Fire TV here and get the SDK here.

You’ve taken the first step in submitting an app to the Amazon Appstore – you’ve created a compelling app or game for Android!  Either that or you’re reading this post to learn more about what’s to come in the store itself – we understand, it’s exciting.  Regardless – if you’re an app developer or you’re just plain old curious, we’ll bottom line the submission process for you.  It’s straight forward – you did the hard work and we want to make submitting to the store easy.

There are three steps to getting your app into the Amazon Appstore for Android: create an account, submit your app, and make your app available.

The first step is creating an account.  This is the easy part – you can create an account directly on the Amazon Appstore Developer Portal.  For a limited time, we’re waiving the $99 program fee to make getting started even easier (or at least cheaper … free) . It’s free to register for a developer account. Go to the Amazon Appstore Developer Portal to create your account. 

You’ll be asked for the following information:

• Profile Information: this is the information we’ll associate with your account and use to talk about you, the developer; in the Profile Information section is a “Developer Info” field – this is public facing and should be a short blurb about who you are
• Acceptance of our agreement (you can also print and save the agreement from the Portal)
• Payment Information: this is what we need to be able to pay you based on app sales

After setting up your account, you’ll need to submit your apk file as well as marketing materials that complement your app.  Marketing materials include details about your app, images, and video.

We will ask for the following details about your app:

• Application Information: The application title, category, and description will help with the marketing of your app and may show up on product detail pages.  If there are keywords you think will help with the discoverability of your app, include them!  Do make sure the keywords are relevant, though (don’t put multi-player if it’s truly a single player app).
• Product Availability Schedule: This information lets us know the earliest we can display an application in the store as well as when/if we need to pull the application down. 
• Application Support: The contact that Amazon should work with to troubleshoot any problems with the application.  This information will not be listed with your app.
• Content Maturity: When you post your app, you will select different content ratings as applicable.  We’ll also check these when we’re testing the app.  Some developers have ESRB ratings for their app – if you have one, include it!  That too will help with the marketing of your app.

You can find out more about what’s specifically required for images and video online here.   It’s important that the images and video you submit are yours (you have the rights to use these images and video) and that they’re reflective of the app itself.  An image with some upset birds for a finance app that helps with taxes wouldn’t do anyone any good.

That’s it – after you open up your account and submit your assets you’re app and details will be in review.  You can track the approval status of your app at any time by logging into the Developer Portal and finding your app in the “Dashboard” on the portal home page.