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Amazon revealed on its company website that it is getting closer to introducing Prime Gaming, a subscription service that gives users in India free access to a selection of games and comes packaged with Amazon Prime and Video plans.
“With Prime Gaming (included with your Prime membership), unlock instant access to tons of exclusive content for your favorite games and a rotating collection of PC games. . . each and every month,” the company mentioned on the website.
Although India is listed as an operating market for the service on a help page for Prime Gaming, gamers who are currently trying to access Prime Gaming are being redirected to a blank page. Amazon secretly took down some of the references late Monday, after some users noticed them and started tweeting about Prime Gaming’s potential arrival in India.
Amazon Prime Gaming
Amazon Prime Gaming operates in a number of markets. An updated version of Twitch Prime, the service debuted in the US in 2016. It provides users with a wide range of additional benefits, such as free in-game loot and a number of Twitch-focused features.
If you have Amazon Prime, you will get free access to Prime Gaming. It gives in-game trivia, free games to download, and a free monthly channel subscription on Twitch.
India is quickly becoming a global gaming hotspot with more than 50.7 crore gamers, of whom approximately one-fourth (12 crores) were paying customers. The easy and widespread availability of cheap data and smartphones, the growth in professional gaming events and eSports, and improved connectivity and infrastructure all contributed to over 5.7 crore increase in gamers over the course of the previous year—roughly an increase of 12%.
The gaming sector got investments totalling around USD 350 million from venture capital firms between 2014 and 2020. The alternative gaming platforms that are currently used in India are Xbox Game Pass, EA Play, and Playstation Plus, among others.
Amazon’s failed businesses
The company recently announced the discontinuation of Amazon Distribution, its wholesale e-commerce website, available to small neighbourhood stores in Bengaluru, Mysore, and Hubli.
By the end of the year, Amazon will also terminate its $20 billion food delivery business in India, under the name Amazon Food, exiting a market it only recently entered. In May 2020, it began offering Food in India in several areas of Bengaluru. Later, the business partnered with more businesses to expand the service around the city, but it never actively marketed the platform.
Amazon also halted its online learning platform called Academy, which it launched in 2021 for high school students.
