Gamertell

Casual games are both convenient and relatively inexpensive. For $20 you can often download a game that will last you for many weeks, offering addictive puzzles and plenty of finger-flickin’ fun. Hoping to cash in on the market, online sales behemoth Amazon now offers several games in its beta download section for $7 to $10. That’s a nice price for gamers but not so good for the economically precarious game companies developing the games.

According to Venture Beat, companies including PopCap Games and iWin and have already parted ways with Amazon’s new Game Downloads (beta) section. Games that usually start at $20 each are being undercut by Amazon’s low starting prices and casual game companies want to keep that starting price point as high as possible for as long as possible to help maximize profits, especially during this cruddy economy.

From the article:

[A]t the Casual Connect conference in Hamburg, long-brewing pricing tensions are coming to a head. Developers are not happy, because they see Amazon’s price-point as an attack on the industry.

One executive from Oberon Media said pricing is the elephant in the room.  And Daniel Bernstein, chief executive of Sandlot Games said: “Once the price is down, it stays.”

The article points out that some club sites do offer games for less than Amazon but mask the difference with club fees and multiple purchases. Adding to casual game companies’ frustrations are the relatively low price of games available through the Apple App Store, which can be as low as free-nintey-nine and most often being sold in the $0.99 to $2.99 range. Only a few, rare games are selling at $9.99.

Amazon purchased Reflexive, also a casual game maker, in October 2008 and launched the Amazon Game Downloads beta section on February 3, 2008, a week prior to the European Casual Connect conference held in Hamburg, Germany (February 10-12, 2009). The site claims to offer more than 600 downloadable games, each costing $9.99 or less.

Read [Venture Beat] Via [Big Download] Site [Amazon Game Downloads] Also Read [Gamertell]