You may know Amazon as that website that ships you industrial-sized packs of diapers and toilet paper, but it is also a game developer and publisher. And the company is expanding one of its exclusive offerings to a new device today.
Amazon announced this morning that it’s releasing the free-to-play Saber’s Edge on Fire Tablets. This is a puzzle role-playing game that studio Hibernum Creations codeveloped in partnership with Amazon. The app has you working to recruit a team of pirates who will help you take on enemies and find treasure. Similar to the Japanese megahit Puzzle & Dragons, Saber’s Edge has players grinding and upgrading their characters in an RPG game while most combat and in-game actions happen in a match-3 puzzler. Amazon has slowly built up a substantial internal gaming business, and it has released a number of exclusives for its various Android-based Fire platforms.
The mobile-gaming business generated more than $25 billion worldwide last year, according to Newzoo. And gaming apps is one of the primary drivers of revenue on smartphones and tablets. Amazon, which has devices in both categories as well as in the microconsole sector, obviously wants to offer something unique to win over consumers who are choosing between various devices in these crowded markets. Saber’s Edge is just one example of that.
Previously, Saber’s Edge debuted exclusively on the Amazon Fire Phone. The company tried to set that device apart during its 2014 launch by positioning it as a handset that had distinctive games, but that did not help the phone catch on. Reports claim that Amazon has struggled to sell its first attempt at a smartphone — and now, months later, the company is looking to give Saber’s Edge a larger audience on the much more successful Fire tablets.