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IGDA Warns Android Developers Against Amazon
The non-profit industry trade organization has sent out an open letter to its members warning against Amazon's new Android Appstore.
The IGDA takes issue with the contractual pricing terms Amazon enforces with developers to sell their games, claiming that they can undercut profits to the developer and could produce a "negative impact" within the development community.
According to IGDA's letter, Amazon reserves the right to control the price of a game and give the developer 20 percent of the list price. While many companies have similar policies, the IGDA takes exception with Amazon's Android Appstore in particular because according to the IGDA, Amazon's terms do not require developer permission for a price reduction, they only give out 20 percent of the list price, and they dictate that Amazon has the lowest list price – even taking into account temporary promotions.
The IGDA fears this could have a bad impact including cutting into developer profits, limiting their promotional opportunities, creating a price war that would negatively impact developers, and possibly making Amazon the only place to sell your Android apps. "The IGDA's bottom line is simple: under Amazon's current terms, Amazon has little incentive not to use a developer's content as a weapon with which to capture marketshare from competing app stores."
The trade organization suggests that any retailer should have to get developer permission if the developer is going to be paid less than "the standard" percentage of a developer's minimum list price. It also wants developers to have the freedom to determine the minimum price of its products regardless of how much it costs at other stores.
The IGDA says it has made its concerns known to Amazon, but the retailer has yet to respond. "We believe that the people currently running Amazon's Appstore may have the best of intentions and a desire to make their development partners successful, in general," states the letter. "The problem, as history has repeatedly demonstrated, is that things tend to change when a marketplace achieves any degree of dominance. The terms of Amazon's distribution agreement give it significant flexibility to behave in a manner that may harmful to individual developers in the long run."
[Full disclosure: Game Informer is owned by retailer GameStop]
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