Amazon has purchased Reflexive Entertainment, a computer game developer based in Lake Forest, California, founded 11 years ago. Apart from actually developing games for PCs, Macs, and even the XBox 360, they own the popular site Reflexive Arcade, which offers downloads of PC games and Mac games, as well as online web games. They also offer a “My Arcade” feature, which lets users create an account and rate games, write reviews, and receive customized recommendations based on the games they like.
“As I’m sure you can all imagine this is a very exciting day for us at Reflexive,” said Reflexive CEO Lars Brubaker. “It means we’ll be able to expand our distribution network to include Amazon’s amazing distribution channel. With Amazon we will bring a huge new group of customers into play.”
Brubaker told developers that its time to get excited about their future with the company. “We can’t talk about everything yet, but we’ll be in touch shortly with more information,” he said. He also noted that all the features about their developer program GameCenterSolution will still be available and that games can still be submitted through the Reflexive site as well.
What Does This Mean For Amazon?
You have to wonder what kind of plans Amazon has for gaming after an acquisition like this. Is it merely a way for them to earn revenue from game distribution? PaidContent.org suggests that Kindle users may be able to play some games from Reflexive on the device in the future, although there is no apparent indication from Amazon that this will happen.
Perhaps they are looking to become a center for more types of media, not only as a seller, but as a destination for use as well. They’re already streaming thousands of movies and television shows. Of course this isn’t free like Hulu or YouTube (although they do have some free content at IMDB), but it does include new releases and is commercial free. Perhaps they would like to incorporate gaming into this particular mix as well.
Financial terms of the acquisition have not yet been made public. Whatever the price Reflexive got though, they are sure to see a boost in business simply from having the Amazon brand behind them alone.
