Amazon going up against Xbox Gold and PS+ with its new twitch Prime initiative

[suicidalfranco]

Amazon has announced that from now on Twitch prime subscribers will start receiving "free" games every month. Up till now, Prime subscribers would receive in-game contents (like they did for Frost Prime in Warframe) or loot boxes (a Hearthstone pack for example) depending on the game, with this recent news, Prime becomes more similar to Xbox Gold and PS+ where you get full games, but, unlike those two,  if you decide to stop paying for Prime the games you received won't disappear, there will be yours forever to keep (or for as long as Twitch will keep existing).
The games for March will be Superhot, Shadow Tactics, Tales from Candlekeep, Oxenfree and Mr. Shifty. Not sure yet if you want this month's games? No problem, another difference with the other two is which games are coming the next month will be known a full month ahead, so here is the runner-up for April: Tales from the Borderland, SteamWorld Dig 2, Kingsway, Tokyo 42 and Dubwars.

Keep in mind that this will require the Twitch platform and games won't be redeemable on Steam.

Quote from TechCrunch:

Quote

In short: each month, they’ll offer a selection of PC games. Download them within the offering window, and they’re yours to keep (though it’s unclear, at this point, if you can keep them if your Prime subscription lapses; we’re asking). Miss the window and you’re probably out of luck — but as long as you’re good with calendar reminders, it’s pretty easy to stay on top of things.

It’s open to anyone with a Twitch Prime subscription — which, for the most part, means you’ve linked an Amazon Prime account to your Twitch account.

1

If you ask me this sounds like an amazing addition to Prime as a whole, I joined for the free shipping and after two years have yet to touch Prime Video, but this is something I might definitely abuse the hell out of it. Don't know if I should even stick with Humble monthly at this point frankly (probably will, game selection is amazing anyway) knowing that HM is 11€/month and Prime is 20€/year.

 

source: https://www.tomshw.it/amazon-giochi-gratis-mese-gli-utenti-twitch-prime-92285

[Slottr]

Have they not been doing this the past like 6 months?

[Rupe]

Just now, Slottr said:

Have they not been doing this the past like 6 months?

Think it's just been free goodies in games up to this point, like booster packs in hearthstone or unique cosmetic items. That type of thing

[Crunchy Dragon]

Please edit your post to conform to Tech News posting guidelines or it will be moved.

 

 

[Slottr]

8 minutes ago, Rupe said:

Think it's just been free goodies in games up to this point, like booster packs in hearthstone or unique cosmetic items. That type of thing

Ive been getting free games for a long time now? Like walking dead, flame in the flood, layers of fear....

[Derangel]

10 minutes ago, Rupe said:

Think it's just been free goodies in games up to this point, like booster packs in hearthstone or unique cosmetic items. That type of thing

Nope. They have been giving free games too. The last several months have all had a free game.

[Rupe]

1 minute ago, Slottr said:

Ive been getting free games for a long time now? Like walking dead, flame in the flood, layers of fear....

Interesting. It seems then this is just more of a guarantee. Like every month you can be assured there will be another set of free games as part of your subscription as opposed to randomly offering the odd free game

[suicidalfranco]

6 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Please edit your post to conform to Tech News posting guidelines or it will be moved.

 

 

quote added

[Misanthrope]

I must say that I really admire how cunning Amazon is about prime.

 

That is to say, if you were to take advantage of everything Amazon prime has to offer, it would be a fairly high red number for them. There's no way most of the discounts and costs they absorb with the cost of the Amazon prime subscription adds up to even just a couple of the promotions and advantages they offer even if they have deals and heavy discounts on those.

 

But the genious is that this is basically modern day coupon codes: Amazon knows very well that many, if not most amazon prime subscribers, will never actually take advantage of most of it. Even if you think you get a lot of things shipped to you in the grand scheme of things you probably don't, not all year round anyway and they more than make up for it by you paying full membership costs during those low to no usage months.

 

Same goes for prime video: yes it might be kind of expensive for them to pay for the catalogue, original productions, streaming costs, etc. But long run I think most people don't use it nearly as much as they think they will when they sign up (assuming they sign up specifically for this).

 

Twitch prime plus seems to be following this same example: I think I already have 75% of the games being named on the OP on steam, but there's a couple I don't and I bet that will be the case for most people that's enough to justify double dipping when in reality they won't actually have to license me most of those games.

 

Amazon is really crunching the math vs the available promotions to make this prime subscription sound really attractive on paper but to actually translate to fairly little costs for them overall (Maybe even completely offset by their subscription revenue overall) while making sure you're not only willingly but enthusiastically diving into their ecosystem so you make business with them first.

 

Not only that but by diversifying into several areas of interest they're much more likely to capture i.e. I might consider Netflix a better option if I couldn't afford both Prime and Netflix subscription for some reason, but do I really want to give up free next day shipping (You will probably lie to yourself in how much you actually need this btw) Do I really want to miss out on some free games (Again you will lie yourself into thinking you'll play most of them, sometimes any of them), etc.

 

This is just deliciously evil and effective marketing

 

*slow claps*

[SpaceGhostC2C]

2 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

 

But the genious is that this is basically modern day coupon codes: Amazon knows very well that many, if not most amazon prime subscribers, will never actually take advantage of most of it. Even if you think you get a lot of things shipped to you in the grand scheme of things you probably don't, not all year round anyway and they more than make up for it by you paying full membership costs during those low to no usage months.

 

Same goes for prime video: yes it might be kind of expensive for them to pay for the catalogue, original productions, streaming costs, etc. But long run I think most people don't use it nearly as much as they think they will when they sign up (assuming they sign up specifically for this).

There is a huge difference between free shipping and video: with free shipping, it's true, they save money the less you use it. But with video, it's all sunk costs: they don't care if you watch a lot or not, they don't save a penny from you not watching. They had to acquire the catalogue or produce the originals anyway. Of course, there may be indirect ways in which they benefit from having it beyond the Prime subscription payments, but under-utilization doesn't work for it the way it works for products or services with more important marginal costs and less important fixed costs.

 

2 minutes ago, Misanthrope said:

 

Amazon is really crunching the math vs the available promotions to make this prime subscription sound really attractive on paper but to actually translate to fairly little costs for them overall (Maybe even completely offset by their subscription revenue overall) while making sure you're not only willingly but enthusiastically diving into their ecosystem so you make business with them first.

 

Not only that but by diversifying into several areas of interest they're much more likely to capture i.e. I might consider Netflix a better option if I couldn't afford both Prime and Netflix subscription for some reason, but do I really want to give up free next day shipping (You will probably lie to yourself in how much you actually need this btw) Do I really want to miss out on some free games (Again you will lie yourself into thinking you'll play most of them, sometimes any of them), etc.

That is more like it (I think Google has the same approach to Play). Whether you want video, free shipping, Twitch, music... you probably don't want all of them. Yet the mind tricks you to believe that if you were close to joining with their previous benefits, then you must want to join once they add another benefit you won't really use  Plus the things you may buy because "now that I have Prime's free shipping / fast delivery, I may as well..." In other words, the old fidelization card trick revamped for online stores.

 

 

[Ginger_]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

Keep in mind that this will require the Twitch platform and games won't be redeemable on Steam.

What? Does twitch have its own game platform? Seriously I don't use twitch so I don't know. 

 

If not how are they giving out the games? Just a free downloadable installer from Amazon? 

[Misanthrope]

55 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

There is a huge difference between free shipping and video: with free shipping, it's true, they save money the less you use it. But with video, it's all sunk costs: they don't care if you watch a lot or not, they don't save a penny from you not watching. They had to acquire the catalogue or produce the originals anyway. Of course, there may be indirect ways in which they benefit from having it beyond the Prime subscription payments, but under-utilization doesn't work for it the way it works for products or services with more important marginal costs and less important fixed costs.

I don't fully disagree with you: costs are far more "fixed" but there's a couple of re: points I'd throw in

 

1) A company that hosts videos and has to basically provide bandwidth actually does care if you watch or not because this determines how much resources have to be allocated to this. TBH I don't actually know if Amazon themselves hosts the videos for streaming but I would assume they do given their other business lines like AWS

2) This is a bit more difficult to realize since this is very indirect, but a great indication of what titles to keep on the catalogue is for Amazon to evaluate which titles are requested more, which titles are watched more to use this information to decide which licenses to invest in.

 

This is a fairly delicate balancing act because again: people will say they want certain titles but if available they might not even watching since there's a very real difference between what people say they want and what they actually consume.

 

But in fairness to your point this might be the most investment heavy part of the prime deal for Amazon but even then I don't actually have enough info to say how much it actually costs Amazon to do this in the grand scheme of things because

1) They already have plenty of infrastructure for the service ready through their AWS line. The hosting costs for Amazon themselves are much lower so this is an added benefit for them for breaking into the web hosting business, one I am sure they considered when they realized that not only their web hosting costs for their website would be lowered and become a key advantage but the fact that it has given them the ability to more easily dive into new markets to expand to like Video on Demand and Video Streaming via Twitch.tv

2) They're already one of the biggest video content providers through the retail sale of DVDs and Bluerays. This is a little tricky but I am sure that because of this, Amazon might get better deals than Netflix when it comes to licensing content for streaming since they already have existing agreements for the media sales with these companies.

 

The insidiousness of Amazon having eggs on so many baskets works in their favor again on the business-to-business side: I can offer a better licensing deal to Netflix but if I offer a similar one to Amazon, well they already sell my content physically anyway so this is expanding on an existing business relationship.

 

But again this is more asides to your points not meant to be counter-arguments just train of thought stuff on the subject.

[Probably Alex]

1 hour ago, suicidalfranco said:

Prime is 20€/year

Are you sure about that or am I missing something? Because Prime is like $99/year for me in the U.S. or $49/year for students.

 

Amazon Help Center on pricing

[Yoinkerman]

Do we have to use amazon launcher because no

[TimeOmnivore]

1 hour ago, Ginger137 said:

What? Does twitch have its own game platform? Seriously I don't use twitch so I don't know. 

 

If not how are they giving out the games? Just a free downloadable installer from Amazon? 

Yes, Twitch Desktop App.

[suicidalfranco]

10 minutes ago, Probably Alex said:

Are you sure about that or am I missing something? Because Prime is like $99/year for me in the U.S. or $49/year for students.

 

Amazon Help Center on pricing

20 outside of the US

[Probably Alex]

4 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

20 outside of the US

After some digging I found this chart, looks like the price varies a lot more than even just US and non US. Interesting. TIL.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

35 minutes ago, Probably Alex said:

After some digging I found this chart, looks like the price varies a lot more than even just US and non US. Interesting. TIL.

Both the price and what you get with Prime varies from country to country.

[suicidalfranco]

34 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Both the price and what you get with Prime varies from country to country.

yep, although... currently here in Italy only things missing are unlimited books, and prime music. 

[Brooksie359]

6 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

yep, although... currently here in Italy only things missing are unlimited books, and prime music. 

Wait is that a thing with prime in other places?

[Cole5]

SO i cant use em on steam and i cant use em on my xbox?  I'll rather have free warframe stuff thanks 

[BuckGup]

So for $99 a year you get music streaming, video streaming, free shipping, free games, cloud storage, and more. Yeah Prime is great

[Bananasplit_00]

so if we could have Amazon up here in Sweden too that would be great, i would definatly have prime if they actiually shipped shit here