Amazon Underground, the initiative that makes mobile games "actually free" with no IAPs, has been rolled out in Italy, Spain and 14 other European countries.
The complete list is as follows:
- Italy
- Spain
- Gibraltar
- Guernsey
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Jersey
- Austria
- Liechtenstein
- Switzerland
- Luxembourg
- Andorra
- Monaco
- Belgium
- Vatican City
- San Marino
Underground employs a system in which developers are paid $0.002 by Amazon per minute of gameplay.
It has been available for two months in the US, UK, Germany and France, in which time it has tripled its catalogue of free apps and games.
And indeed, our intial concerns about balancing have seemingly not dampened the enthusiasm of consumers, with Halfbrick and Rovio reporting that the scheme has more than doubled their revenues.
Possibly Amazon Underground's biggest obstacle is the fact it can't be downloaded via the ubiquitous Google Play store, instead available exclusively through the Amazon website and so must be sideloaded onto Android devices.
Not impossible but likely too tricky for most users.
It does, however, come pre-loaded on the Amazon Fire line of tablets.
For those in the listed territories, you can access all Underground content through the Amazon Android app, available for download here.
