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Amazon Appstore Developers 2023 year in review

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As 2023 comes to a close, we invite you to take a look back with us at some of our favorite highlights. From new features and developer tools, to expanding across devices to reach PC gamers, to in-person meet-ups — we’re incredibly grateful to celebrate another year with the Amazon Appstore Developer community.

 

2023 product and feature release round-up

Whether you’re porting your first app to Fire OS or already delighting users around the world, we built tools and features to support your growing business on the Amazon Appstore:

App porting made easier with product improvements and new developer tools for publishing Android apps on the Amazon Appstore:

New customer experience features to increase engagement and revenue:

  • Simple Sign-in uses secure tokens to represent the identity of your users, eliminating the need for them to remember and input their login credentials every time they sign in across multiple devices.
  • Pending Purchases gives your users more control and peace of mind by allowing parents and guardians to approve or decline in-app purchasing requests made through the Amazon Kids user profile.
  • Privacy labels provide your customers with transparency on how your app collects and uses their data.

Streamlined workflow for submitting apps with an updated the Live App Testing and App submission experience. We heard your feedback and simplified forms, reduced manual inputs, and added auto-save functionality. 
 

Reaching new PC users with Amazon Appstore on Windows 11

Important: Amazon Appstore on Windows 11 will no longer be supported after March 5, 2025. Read the blog for more information.

In July, we were thrilled to announce that all developers can distribute their apps and games to Amazon Appstore on Windows 11, unlocking hundreds of millions of new users across 31 countries. Over 53K apps are available today, including a few whose developers were excited as us to share their stories: 

 

SmileGate Megaport Epic Seven

Smilegate Megaport launched their flagship RPG, Epic Seven, as they “saw an opportunity to not only give our mobile players more choice, but also to reach additional gamers who prefer to play on PC,” said Daniel Kim, Head of Smilegate Megaport US. They’ve since added Outerplane and Wonderers: Eternal World to the catalog as well.

 

Gmonks Entertainment

GMonks leveraged the Amazon Input SDK to reduce design and development costs when adapting their popular mobile games for keyboard and mouse support, offering their users an in-game tutorial for how to play using the new device inputs. 

 

Gmonks Entertainment

Smilegate Megaport launched their flagship RPG, Epic Seven, as they “saw an opportunity to not only give our mobile players more choice, but also to reach additional gamers who prefer to play on PC,” said Daniel Kim, Head of Smilegate Megaport US. They’ve since added Outerplane and Wonderers: Eternal World to the catalog as well.

Lords Mobile

GMonks leveraged the Amazon Input SDK to reduce design and development costs when adapting their popular mobile games for keyboard and mouse support, offering their users an in-game tutorial for how to play using the new device inputs.  

We estimate that getting on Windows 11 via Amazon and Windows Subsystem for Android required just 17% of the usual effort of doing a fully native Windows port of our code. A dramatic savings in time and expense!"
said Brian Hall, CEO of Mark/Space who captivated PC users with their retro gaming service app, Argon.

Playrix is a global leader in mobile gaming and had to ensure their users would receive the same quality experience on PC without overwhelming their development resources. Thankfully, the Appstore documentation and guidance for Windows 11 enabled them to quickly port their apps by no more than a week.

 

Playrix on Windows 11

There's over 800K gamers playing Lords Mobile thanks to IGG’s success with extending their game portfolio to Windows 11. Amazon’s promotional tools helped them spotlight their games, communicate unique selling points, and significantly boost visibility to the gaming community.

 

Lords Mobile
Gmonks Entertainment

Playrix is a global leader in mobile gaming and had to ensure their users would receive the same quality experience on PC without overwhelming their development resources. Thankfully, the Appstore documentation and guidance for Windows 11 enabled them to quickly port their apps by no more than a week.

Lords Mobile

There's over 800K gamers playing Lords Mobile thanks to IGG’s success with extending their game portfolio to Windows 11. Amazon’s promotional tools helped them spotlight their games, communicate unique selling points, and significantly boost visibility to the gaming community.

What an “event-full” year

We had a blast hosting our first virtual devDay event in April. In addition to new releases, our industry experts covered best practices for optimizing your app on Amazon Appstore. Viewers especially liked learning about the benefits available through the Small Business Accelerator Program, such as improved revenue share and AWS promotional credits. Special thanks to everyone who joined us in the devLounge for live Q&A! ICYMI, you can watch all the sessions for free on-demand.

Amazon Appstore developer events

From Games Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, to devCom in Cologne, to droidcon London — we got to meet up with you at 16 events across the globe. We loved connecting in-person to hear about what you’re building and how we can make our tools better. Your creativity and feedback are truly invaluable when it comes to shaping the future of Amazon Appstore.

We hope you had as much fun learning about some of our favorite topics as we did sharing them with you:


Follow @AmazonAppDev and sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date on where we’re headed next.  
 

Thank you

Our recap wouldn’t be complete without a huge “thank you” to you — the developers who create content and experiences customers love. You inspire us to keep innovating, improving, and investing in what matters. Thank you for being part of our community. We can’t wait to see what you build in 2024.

 

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