Popcap teams up with Amazon on Android

Brian Ambrozy 16 May, 2011 at 1:05pm ET Article published in Gaming

Popcap announced today that tomorrow, May 17th, marks the availability of some of their best-selling games on the Android platform, via the Amazon Appstore.

Tomorrow they’re starting off with Chuzzle, the classic colorful match-three puzzle game filled with furry creatures called Chuzzles. On the day of release, the game will be free, and after that it will be available in the Appstore for $2.99 until May 30th.

After Chuzzle, they’re releasing the blockbuster Plants vs. Zombies for Android. Again, it will be available for free on the first day of release, which is “later this month” according to the press release.

There’s a zombie on your lawn. We don’t want zombies on the lawn.

Comments

16 May 2011 ~ 1:22pm Kwitko IN YOUR FACE, IPHONE
16 May 2011 ~ 1:28pm GnomeQueen *Drools*
16 May 2011 ~ 1:40pm AlexDeGruven Yus yus yus. Can't wait.
16 May 2011 ~ 3:49pm Annes I want a good time management game on my Evo SO BAD. Someone, anyone, make it happen.
16 May 2011 ~ 4:05pm Kwitko I've been playing Airport Mania. Good times.
17 May 2011 ~ 4:15pm BobbyDigi Reminder, Chuzzle is Free only today. Link

/Edit x4

Of Note:

* Must have Wi-Fi connection to download
* Chuzzle will not run on these devices:
* --All tablets
* --Sony Ericsson X8
* --Motorola Droid
* --Motorola Devour
* --LG Ally
* --HTC MyTouch 3G
* --Samsung Transform
* --Sanyo Zio

*Link is taking a while to get sent to my phone, probably due to "Free". <S>Taken about 5 min so far, no link. /edit about 10 min now. Submitted email about 2 minutes ago, just got email. Still no text. Use an email that you have access to on your phone for fastest service</S>. Just go here from your phone: https://www.amazon.com/app-email to download the Amazon App Market App

*As with most things Free, it is for a reason. You have to install the Amazon Marketplace on your Android, then sign in to download and install this app. This will all be 100% worth it when you are blowing up all the Zombies on yer lawn in the near future.
17 May 2011 ~ 4:27pm primesuspect That wi-fi only restriction is weird. Is it because carriers don't want Amazon appstore traffic on their networks? I don't understand the rationale.
17 May 2011 ~ 4:31pm BobbyDigi

primesuspect wrote:

That wi-fi only restriction is weird. Is it because carriers don't want Amazon appstore traffic on their networks? I don't understand the rationale.

I saw a bit of discussion on this on the comments for the game. One particular comment from a 5 star review offers this advice:

A lot of complaints about being forced to download on wi-fi, but i think Amazon is to blame for that. In the settings, there's an option to force wi-fi if a download is too big. You can't turn this off; the max is 20mb.
And yes, the file is pretty large. The graphics are also pretty smooth. So you could get worked up about it, or you could stop pretending every Android game in the world can fit on your phone at one time and uninstall the 6 other versions of this game you have.

Edit to add: also it seems you do not need Wifi to download the Amazon Market. I was able to download it over 3G on my G2.
17 May 2011 ~ 8:41pm NiGHTS FWIW - Been using Amazon AppStore since it came out (and have gotten close to 10 free useful apps already, awesome service) and wi-fi only is not a requirement for 'normal' days. This is the first I've seen of it.
18 May 2011 ~ 8:55am AlexDeGruven The WiFi download is an app-to-app restriction.

For some reason, PopCap decided to include ALL the assets for the game in the initial .apk, rather than splitting it out like some of the larger apps (WSOP Hold-em for example, another free app of the day) and downloading the big assets later at the user's convenience.

From what I've been reading, the PopCap games are relatively low-effort ports in an attempt to get them out quickly. Hopefully, they'll work a little harder on later games (and maybe updates to existing games) to account for the Android method of doing things in the future.
28 May 2011 ~ 9:21pm BobbyDigi A fun little Ninja game available today free, YooNinja. Worth the time to download. Also if PvZ is supposed to be here "Later this month" (May), it should be in the next 3 days.
31 May 2011 ~ 8:45am Zanthian Plants Versus Zombies is free on Amazon Market today. Don't miss it.
31 May 2011 ~ 9:22am AlexDeGruven Got it. Runs quite well. Fun fun game.
31 May 2011 ~ 9:48am Kwitko Got it too. Can't wait.
31 May 2011 ~ 1:36pm Zanthian Played it on my lunch break. It does play pretty well. Great time waster on my phone
2 Jun 2011 ~ 3:39am BobbyDigi Taskkiller pro free today. Nice.
2 Jun 2011 ~ 9:05am AlexDeGruven Except... You don't need one, particularly in 2.2+
2 Jun 2011 ~ 9:15am Kwitko Yeah. Task killers. Do not want. Bad for economy. Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent.
2 Jun 2011 ~ 9:22am AlexDeGruven I can't believe someone actually charges for one. Particularly when they're shown to be detrimental to performance and battery life.

I should create an app that shows a few bells and whistles, maybe impacts performance a bit, and sell it for $2.99.
2 Jun 2011 ~ 9:27am Thrax The technical reasons why task killers are bad:

The Android multi-tasking model suspends inactive applications and writes their last operating state to the internal storage, then removes the active portion from RAM.

Taskkiller, on the other hand, forcefully brings those applications out of the suspended state just to kill them. In other words, you're actually using the CPU/RAM/NAND when you didn't otherwise have to, and that's a direct hit on your device's battery life.

Just say no to task killers.

If you want to save battery life, learn tasker and learn how to underclock your device in the screen off state.
2 Jun 2011 ~ 9:32am AlexDeGruven Or, if you're THAT concerned about battery life, you probably shouldn't be rockin' the smartphone.

I have no problem with charging at least once per day and have a 3-pack of spare batteries for when I know I won't be near a charger.

It's what you do to be able to carry around a little PC in your pocket.
2 Jun 2011 ~ 12:08pm BobbyDigi TIL I should have kept up on task killers, thanks guys
26 Aug 2011 ~ 7:46pm BobbyDigi Anyone that may not keep up day to day on these but still has the Amazon Appstore installed: Frogger is free today

Yet to try it but it's by Konami, doesn't have the best reviews and hey.... it's free!
30 Aug 2012 ~ 4:31pm BobbyDigi 1 Year bump if anyone still runs the Amazon App Store log in today and the origional Angry Birds (Ad Free) is Free today
30 Aug 2012 ~ 4:38pm midga That's awesome...but I stopped using the amazon app store and any of my apps I got for free on it. It bloated the crap out of my phone, and the interface for it was just abhorrent. I'd totally pick it up, otherwise =/
30 Aug 2012 ~ 4:46pm BobbyDigi They recently redesigned the store. I would recomend giving it another try if you are even remotly interested in Angry Birds without ads. While I have never noticed the store bloating on my phone, I went months downloading the daily free apps and that eventually filled up my memory with aps/games I never played. I treat it like my Steam library now. Authentacate the purchase but just don't click download. When I am in the mood to try out some new games I hop onto my list and download a couple that look interesting.
30 Aug 2012 ~ 5:24pm midga Am I able to delete things from my list yet?

--edit--

Went to the Amazon site and picked it up. Didn't even have to install the app. Might do it later, I did have quite a bit on it.

--edit edit--

I just checked, and it looks like you /can/ delete stuff now. That was my biggest beef, what with all the crappy free things I tried out. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, btw

--edit edit edit--

So, somehow picking that up gave me a $1 mp3 credit. Now I have ad-free Unhappy Avians and a copy of Bliss - Song for Olabi
30 Aug 2012 ~ 7:15pm BobbyDigi Yes! Every time you download the daily app it counts as an "order" and it does seem random orders are chosen to get a $1 credit towards Amazon MP3. I've recieved 2 $1 credits that I used to pick up an SOAD album.
31 Aug 2012 ~ 12:47pm midga Man, I haven't listened to System in years. Kinda wanna turn them on now...