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Monetization of free-to-play games just got a lot weirder. You've gotten used to paying real cash for hats in Team Fortress 2. But what if those purchases came with an actual hat, delivered to your mailbox via Amazon?
Under Amazon's new Mobile App Associates API, developers publishing on any Android store (not just Amazon's) can sell items from the Amazon marketplace from within their software, allowing users to place orders without leaving the app.
On every purchase, developers will earn a 6 percent referral fee.
Why would players buy items on Amazon through videogames when they could otherwise shop around or do it from their desktop? Because of what Amazon is calling "digital bundling." A developer could set it up so that when you buy a real hat on Amazon, you unlock an in-game version of that hat for your character.
Amazon even came up with some creative recommendations for developers.
If "the boss at the end of a stage in your game is a giant three-headed wolf, sell the popular 'Three Wolf Moon' t-shirt from Amazon," the official announcement post advised.
Buy tokens for the Ticket to Ride video board game, and Amazon will ship the real-life ones to your mailbox.For developers, this is a powerful motivation to begin selling physical tie-in items on Amazon. If they create their own merchandise for their game, they'll get more money on each sale by selling it through the game, according to Amazon PR Manager Rena Lunak.
"The 6 percent referral fee applies to any purchase from within the app, regardless of who produces the product," Lunak said in an email to WIRED.
Board game publisher Days of Wonder was given early access to the program, and it has already begun using it with the Android version of its game Ticket to Ride.
Players of the virtual version of Ticket to Ride can place an order for the physical edition of the board game within the app itself. If they buy the physical version of one of the expansion packs for Ticket to Ride through Amazon, they'll unlock the pack for the app version, too.
Days of Wonder co-founder Mark Kaufmann told WIRED that the company delayed doing an Android version of Ticket to Ride for a long time because of the dominance of free-to-play games with lots of in-app purchases in the Android marketplace.
Amazon approached Days of Wonder and offered to give it early access to the new API, and everything changed. "It made absolute sense for us to work with them," Kaufmann said via phone.
Days of Wonder is even running a special promotional event using the Android version of Ticket to Ride: For a limited time, the company is releasing special score marker tokens that will only be available on Amazon. Buy the in-game versions and Amazon will ship the physical tokens to your mailbox.
The possibilities are endless. Rovio already sells Angry Birds-branded backpacks on Amazon. Now it could sell them to you from directly within the popular app. Even better, it could offer a coupon with a discount on that backpack to players who manage to get a high score or complete certain objectives.
Candy Crush Saga maker King.com does pretty well selling virtual coins, but what if it could sell you an actual pack of official Saga-styled candy and deliver it to your home? Every purchase could come with a batch of power-ups for use in-game.
The deal only extends to Android developers for now, but it's hard not to imagine where this could be headed. Buying a character in League of Legends? Pay extra and get their action figure bundled in, with free shipping thanks to Amazon Prime.
(Just don't expect to see this on iPhone any time soon. Maybe Apple could partner with Etsy.)
