DRM News

Gamasutra reports that Amazon may be moving beyond its casual game downloads to something larger.

The expectation that the company will be expanding its game offerings was triggered by job postings on Amazon, which were confirmed by Gamasutra. These include new positions such as "Designer, Digital Software and Video Games" and "Software Development Engineer, Digital Software and Video Games," among others. 

So this is quite interesting. Amazon is already providing DRM free music downloads, they’ve got good customer service, and a well established position in the online marketplace. So there is a lot of room for them to move beyond their casual games section into mainstream games. The main question is what form this expanded service, if it becomes a reality, would take. Something like Steam’s client system? A more account-based approach, similar to what GamersGate uses? Or something entirely different.

Another question is how will they handle DRM? They’ve shown, with their music downloads, to be DRM wary, or at least listening to their customers who are DRM wary. They already have a huge market presence and they could possibly change the landscape as it stands currently depending on how they go.

However this is still a rumour, Amazon hasn’t released anything to clarify yet, so this is still supposition. Although it would be quite interesting if it is true. I am a firm believer in competition and having Amazon enter this marketplace may be what is needed to help lower the cost of games as Steam and GamersGate have been advocating.