Amazon Coins - Amazon's Virtual Currency Now Available for Purchase for Use in Apps and Games

After making billions of dollars in real currency, Amazon has now entered the virtual currency market for Apps and Games. This highly anticipated move was announced in Amazon's characteristic way in a "Dear Customers" letter posted on Amazon's home page (see image below) by the CEO Jeff Bezos. The letter informed the Kindle Fire Owners that they will find "a little unexpected something" in their account, referring to the 500 Amazon Coins which the company gave away as a freebie to all Kindle Fire owners in United States by depositing it in their accounts. Each coin is worth 1 US cent, making this gift from Amazon worth $5.

Customers can use these coins for purchasing apps and games from Amazon's appstore, as well as in-app items.
Obviously, the goal is to get some of these customers used to using the virtual currency and buy more which is conveniently available for purchase "at a discount."

The message then goes on list some of the Apps and Game, and in Amazon's usual manner, it bragged the growth in terms of Apps available on Kindle Fire in terms in relative statistics ("tripled over the last year") rather than absolute number which is believed to be relatively modest as compared to iPhone/ iPad and Android.

Amazon's developers' website gives more about the program defining Amazon Coins as a new virtual currency that Amazon's customers will be able to use on Kindle Fire to buy apps, games and items inside apps and games. It also reassured developers that they will continue to get the same royalties whether the customer buys their App/ Game using real dollars or Amazon's virtual currency.

All Amazon apps and games that are listed for sale on Kindle Fire in US automatically become available for purchase via Amazon coins. In addition, the apps and games which use Amazon's latest Amazon Mobile App SDK now automatically get access to Amazon Coins as another payment method honored by the SDK.

Further, Amazon coins can be covered to game specific in-game currencies, in a one way virtual currency exchange.