In this post, I’ll be covering the steps to review before you should consider selling your apps internationally, including API availability, localization, pricing, and reviewing local feedback.

An app store accepted your game, and you see good results. For better results, you may want to think about having your app featured by a games journalist or a media pro, such as a YouTuber or Twitch Broadcaster.

Today we’re kicking off our Amazon Appstore developer happy hour series, a monthly gathering hosted by the Amazon Appstore team in different cities across the country.

How you reply to customer reviews often influences whether a prospective user will select your app or game, and whether they will recommend it to others. Responding to user reviews and engaging with your customers is a smart practice.

Most app developers agree that marketing your app is a tricky job. With thousands of apps for people to choose from, it can be challenging to get your new game the exposure it truly deserves. You can reach success if you have a unique app and a solid marketing strategy.

Congratulations! You are building a great game, and you’ve decided to enter it into an indie prize competition! Before you apply, it’s important to remember that you’ll be one of hundreds of games that will be evaluated by judges. Your goal is to be noticed, to stand out, and reduce any friction for the judges playing your game.

Getting and keeping my attention as a judge actually starts with how you fill in the application form. Let’s take a look at some common aspects of an indie prize application form.

Available Platforms

Almost always, one question relates to the platforms for which you’ll have a build for judges.

Since the launch of Amazon Coins in 2013, customers have already spent hundreds of millions of Amazon Coins. For developers, Amazon Coins gives customers more ways to buy, and more incentives to download and use your apps and games.  While customers save when they pay using Amazon Coins, Amazon Appstore developers continue to earn their standard 70% revenue share.  Customers enjoy real savings, while developers get their full revenue share.

From October 24^th through November 1^st, your customers can purchase 5,000 and 10,000 coin bundles at a 20% discount, which allows them to double their savings on games and in-app items, so they can spend less & play more.

Learn More

• To download the Amazon Appstore, click here.
• To buy Amazon Coins click here
• Create a free Amazon Developer Account here.

The mobile game development community is chock-full of vibrant developers such as yourself, with amazing creativity, innovation and passion for games. Chartboost can help get your amazing mobile game in front of millions of players through the Amazon Appstore across Amazon and Android devices.

To do that, Chartboost created the GameOn program. Together we’re offering $100 in free Chartboost ad credit to 500 qualified Chartboost users. You can use these credits to promote all your games for which you’ve implemented the Chartboost SDK across multiple platforms –Apple Appstore, Google Play Store and Amazon Appstore.

Today, Amazon is pleased to share Chartboost with Appstore game developers. Chartboost is the largest mobile-games only platform, helping game developers increase revenue and discover new players. According to Chartboost, they power over 200,000 games with 700 million monthly active players and drive over 20 billion monthly game sessions per month.

Tools Mobile Game Developers Love

Chartboost’s technology enables Amazon developers to acquire players with positive ROI and grow revenue. Their Cross Promotion tool to lets you promote your new titles to the players who already love your other mobile games with free interstitial and mobile video ads. With their unique Direct Deals Marketplace, you can connect with other game developers and act as a publisher and/or advertiser, on terms that both sides agree upon. This allows you to cut out the middleman completely, and keep 100% of the revenue you generate.

“Every mobile game that I know is using Chartboost. They understand what mobile game developers need to build a successful business.”

Tommy Palm, Candy Crush Mastermind

Amazon developers can conduct large-scale advertising campaigns that reap high quality players with positive ROI and greatly enhance revenue with made-for-mobile interstitial ads and gorgeous, 100% viewable mobile video ads—all through one lightweight SDK. In addition, Chartboost provides an easy-to-use dashboard for developers, with granular control over who advertises in your mobile games, ad location, targeting options and so much more.

Get Started in Minutes

Developers can start growing their mobile games business on Amazon with Chartboost, today. To get started, sign up for an account and download the lightweight Chartboost Android SDK that takes only five minutes to integrate.

-Ankur

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Today we introduced Amazon Underground to customers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France. Amazon Underground is a new Amazon shopping app for Android phones that has all of the functionality of our regular Amazon mobile shopping app plus an exciting new benefit: over ten thousand dollars in apps, games and in-app items that are #ActuallyFree. We’ve made this possible by working out a new business model for developers - we’ll pay you on a per-minute-played basis in exchange for you waiving your normal download or in-app fees.  This means, you can turn 100% of your Android users into revenue-generating customers, so from the minute your customers start playing, you start getting paid for each minute they use your Amazon Underground app. It’s a win for both customers and developers.

There has never been a better time to integrate the Amazon Mobile Ads API into your game and now with full support for Unity, it’s easier then ever. In this post I’ll walk you through how to get everything up and running as well as how to build a simple test in order to make sure ads correctly load and display. Before we get started, you’ll want to read over this page and follow instructions 1 – 5. This will cover setting up the application key in the developer portal, setting up your tax information as well as downloading and installing the SDK. Once you’ve followed those steps you should be ready to test out that everything works. For this post, I’m using an empty Unity project. You can do the same steps in your own game as well. With your Unity project open and the Amazon Mobile Ads SDK plugin imported, we are ready to write some code.

If you've never published an app to the Amazon Appstore, now is the perfect time to join! Most Android apps just work on the Amazon Appstore, but it’s not always easy being the new guy.  That’s why for a limited time, we’re helping drive impressions and installs for developers that publish to the Amazon Appstore for the first time.

Publish your first app to the Amazon Appstore by August 16th, and we’ll provide you with a $100 promotional credit towards an ad campaign on Advertise Your App. Advertise Your App helps you promote your app to millions of users on Fire tablet wakescreens and mobile placements on the Amazon Mobile Ad Network. Ads are shown to users within the United States, depending on app compatibility.

Amazon Mobile Ads API Plugin Available for Unity, Cordova, Adobe AIR and Xamarin

We are excited to announce that our new Amazon Cross-Platform Mobile Ads API Plugin is now available for Unity, Cordova, Adobe AIR and Xamarin. The Amazon Mobile Ads API is an in-app display advertising solution for monetizing mobile apps and games across many devices, including phones and tablets on Android, iOS, and Fire OS. In this post, we’ll walk through how to integrate Amazon Mobile Ads into your game to maximize revenue while maintaining a user-friendly experience. The same best practices can also be used in a mobile app as well.

If you’re familiar with existing ad services or have seen ads appear in games created by other developers, you’ll find that the Amazon Mobile Ads API is easy to wrap your head around. The basic ad formats supported are banner ads, which come in the sizes 320x50, 300x250, 600x90, 728x90, and 1024x50, and full screen interstitials; note that banner ads loaded through the new cross platform plug-ins will have their sizes chosen automatically. Our ads target users in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Japan, and our service is geared towards delivering great eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) and high quality ads. Integrating the Mobile Ads API is straightforward and we provide individual documentation for each newly supported platform: Unity, Cordova, Adobe AIR, and Xamarin. We also offer a single portal for integration and tracking, allowing you to measure your success rate with actionable and easy-to-use reporting. For more information about the entire Amazon Ads platform, check out the Developer Portal.

As a part of building our concept game “Planet Destroyer” we’re talking to a series of industry experts and mentors to help us think through everything it takes to make a game. In this episode, our guest is Starr Long, Executive Producer of “Shroud of the Avatar” the director of the original Ultima Online. We discuss the fundamentals of making a game while deeply engaging with players, how to focus intensely to preserve the uniqueness of a game, and marketing an indie game.

The central idea of our concept game Planet Destroyer is that it’s focused on the relationship between a Twitch broadcaster and their viewers. It has to be highly interactive and social to succeed. With this in mind we spoke to Starr about how we can use analytics to measure and optimize the social aspects of our game to increase engagement and revenue.

The Amazon Mobile Ad network is offering a limited time opportunity to earn a guaranteed $6 CPM for interstitial ads on qualifying apps*. All qualifying iOS and Android apps that integrate the Amazon Mobile Ads API and send the ad request for the first time on or after July 14, 2015 will receive a guaranteed $6 CPM on interstitial ads in September, October and November (up to 1 million impressions per app per month). Interstitial impressions served across all supported devices (iOS, Android, and Fire OS tablets and phones), supported countries (US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan), and supported stores (Apple App Store, Google Play and Amazon Appstore) qualify.