Retailer-to-all-of-Planet-Earth Amazon have made a concerted push to bring indie games to the attention of said planet with their new Indie Games Store. The new storefront, say Amazon, “helps independent game developers reach more customers, and helps customers learn about more creative games and the people and processes behind building those games.”
The prices are good: a launch deal has seen FTL reduced to $5, Papo and Yo to $7.50, and Trine to $1.25. What’s more, buy any indie game in the next four days and you’ll get three more for free.
“From June 6-10 we’re giving away Huntsman: The Orphanage, Dynasty of Dusk, and The Curse of Nordic Cove with any purchase from the Indie Games Store (including from the aforementioned sale with savings of up to 75%),” say Amazon.
The store currently hosts a number of ‘Packs’, ‘Bags’ and ‘Bundles’, themed variously by developer, nationality, genre and arbitrary link (darkness?). Laudably, 100% of the proceeds for these bundles go to the developers of the games included.
A ‘Learn about making games’ section, meanwhile, recommends books on game design and on specific toolsets like Unity and GameMaker.
The storefront also incorporates a regular Q&A feature, Indie Spotlight, designed to highlight individual developers. Today’s stars Gaijin Games, and coincides with a comprehensive sale on their BIT.TRIP series.
Evidently somebody at Amazon takes the business of indie games very seriously indeed, and knows what makes it tick – personalities. Most exciting, though, is the fact that the world’s biggest store can find financial sense in deliberately promoting and supporting these games. That’s a big step, isn’t it?
Edit: Buyers are reporting that the store is currently US-only. Hmph. Let’s hope that’s a state of affairs rectified asap.
Thanks to Lewie P for pointing this one out.