Amazon is shutting down its Amazon Underground Actually Free program in 2019.

All existing users will be able to access their games and current Amazon Fire tablets will continue to support the service until its full closure in 2019.

However, new Fire devices will not support the app and it will be pulled from the Amazon Appstore in summer 2017.

Developers will also not be able to add their games to the service from May 31st 2017. They can keep updating titles already on Underground until its eventual closure.

Money by the minute

Amazon did not provide a reason for the service's closure. It instead pointed developers towards its Amazon Coins and Merch by Amazon services as additional routes for earning revenue outside of the Underground app.

Amazon Underground was first launched back in August 2015 and offered devs $0.002 for every minute of time a player spent on their game. It was met with intrigue by our Mobile Mavens and doubt by our own writers.

Despite initial worries, the service did appear to be adding some value to games. Both Halfbrick and Rovio reported increased revenues through the service compared to how its games had performed previously on the Amazon Appstore.