So Google Play’s second birthday was for better or worse a major bust. At least from the consumer side of things. Can Amazon do better with the sale they are having to celebrate its Third Birthday? Yes, the Amazon App store is having a birthday celebration. Everyone is invited, provided you have the Amazon App Store installed on your device. Some might not like or care for the Amazon App Store, but personally I can’t turn down the opportunity of a really great app offer during the Free App of The Day. Going back to the birthday celebration sale, Amazon is putting a select number of apps in their store up for sale for a limited time, along with a sort of cash back type purchase on IAP.
The way that the cash back scenario works is that for a limited time while this sale is going to commemorate the App Store turning three, they will give 50% of your money back any time you buy In-App purchases through Apps. Seems like a pretty good deal right? Perhaps it’s not all that bad, but it would have been better if they actually just made the In-App purchases half off to begin with. Instead what they have done is set it up so that you still pay the full cost of the IAP, but you get 50% of that cost credited back to you in the form of Amazon coins(similar to Google Play Credits), for use with purchasing other items inside the Amazon App Store.
In all fairness it isn’t really that bad of a gig. It would have been cooler to have the option though, to either pay half price or pay full cost and get half of the cost back in Coins. The other thing to pay attention to is that the Coin Back system only supports select titles as well. So you can’t just purchase IAP from whatever App or game you want. It will only work with certain titles. Like Asphalt 8 for instance. Here’s a short little description from Amazon on how this little celebration works: As an added bonus, for a limited time, customers who buy in-app items within select titles including Asphalt 8, Animal Voyage, Kingdoms of Camelot, The Hobbit, Sonic Dash, World at Arms and Despicable Me: Minion Rush will receive 50% back on the purchase price in the form of Amazon Coins. So there you have it. Celebrate with Amazon and maybe even get yourself a sweet deal on some apps and IAP. Is this celebration sale better than the one that Google Play had for turning two? That really boils down to an opinion, but we’re saying no.