For Amazon, competition has grown significantly since the Mobile World Congress and Games Developers Conference jumped off. With sales of the Fire Phone not flying off the shelves, it seems that Amazon Game Studios is attempting to boost morale by releasing four premium mobile games to market.
Two titles, Lost Within and Til Morning’s Light, are brand new efforts by the company, which acquired Reflexive Entertainment in 2008 and Double Helix Games in 2014. Meanwhile, Tales From Deep Space and To-Fu Fury are popular titles from Amazon’s established mobile games catalog. All four will be made available to users of the iPhone, iPad, and Fire devices.
While there’s no release date unveiled yet, these titles are targeted toward mobile game aficionados in hopes they’ll stick around with the maligned Fire device. Amazon’s bypassing the freemium model, which is showing to be a success by other developers, and is pricing the titles at $6.99, as well as featuring in-app purchases.
As PAX East continues to go off in Boston, Amazon is planning on showing the games during its livestream at 1:30 p.m. EST (6:30 p.m. GMT). Interested gamers will have from today, Friday, March 6, through Sunday, March 8, to see all four titles in action. There’s a lot riding on the success of this venture, as Amazon and its Games Studio believe this will captivate consumers by creating a great mobile experience.
“We wanted these games to be the best along some dimension,” Amazon Game Studios vice president Mike Frazzini told The Verge. Lost Within, a survival horror game, is set in an abandoned asylum where users must choose to tackle situations stealthily or head-on. Tales From Deep Space is an outrageous sci-fi adventure title where players take control of two reluctant heroes to fight dangerous battles. Til Morning’s Light is a haunting, touch-based action-adventure game focused on exploration.
All three of those games were developed in partnership with WayForward Technologies and Frontier Developments.
To-Fu Fury, which was previously available on the Fire Phone last July, is a fast-paced, action-filled puzzle platform. Amazon Game Studios want to bring these games, and eventually more, to the large audience provided by the iOS service. No word as to whether or when these titles will be made available on Android at some point.
Lost Within and Til Morning’s Light sound interesting on paper, but the true test is how it fairs during the PAX East livestream. Amazon Game Studios’ expansion to more devices hints at a promising trend that could prove influential for other mobile game developers.
Photo: Claudio Toledo | Flickr
