If Amazon Prime Gaming would make one important change, it could very well become a much more competitive service that gives out free games.
It won’t be long before there are just as many video game subscriptions/platforms with free games as there are TV and Movie streaming services. It might already be there, given all the "big" names out there: Games with Gold, Xbox Game Pass, PS Plus, PS Now (soon to be merged into PS Plus), Epic Games Store, Amazon Prime Gaming, and more. Perhaps the biggest advantage the latter has is that most of its benefits come straight from having Amazon Prime, something many households likely already have anyway.
Yet, arguably, Amazon Prime Gaming isn’t really as “well utilized” as Epic Games Store, PS Plus, or Xbox Game Pass. There’s certainly not as much discussion about it when it comes to its biggest benefit: free games. This month alone, Amazon Prime Gaming is giving out Oblivion, Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge, and more, smaller titles, and it seems far too many are sleeping on these.
According to Statista, only about 6% of total gamers use Amazon Prime Gaming. Even solely among PC players, that percentage is about 13%. It should be noted that this is dated back to October 2021 AND it has a relatively small sample size of about 1600, but even so, those percentages seem far too low for 1600 people. Yet, if Amazon Prime Gaming were to make one competitive change, it could make all the difference.
How Amazon Prime Gaming typically works is there are 1-3 headlining titles, accompanied by a handful of small indie titles. It announces these games, releases them, and gives fans the course of a month to claim them. Then, the cycle repeats. It’s worth looking at how this stacks up to Game Pass, Epic Games Store, and PS Plus, at least, before highlighting how it could be more competitive.
Xbox Game Pass is hailed as one of the best values in gaming, so it’s hard to compare anything to it. Game Pass adds many high-quality games over the month, with more presence and engagement than Amazon Prime Gaming. Yet, once again, Prime Gaming may be the most approachable service—because many likely have it without even realizing it. Obviously, Game Pass titles last much longer too, but since that's not Prime Gaming's MO, it's not really fair to factor that in.
Epic Games Store tends to focus on smaller titles, although a recent potential pattern could mean that Epic Games Store is looking to do one big game, one niche game per week. Yet, Prime Gaming offers as much and plenty in the way of smaller titles too. PS Plus has long been a name in the gaming industry, and it has the weight of Sony behind it. But Amazon is a big name too. So, the question is why does Amazon Prime Gaming not get as much attention as these others?
Amazon Prime Gaming should stop announcing a full-blown list and releasing them all at once at the beginning of the month. While the immediate access to a bunch of games is exciting for Amazon Prime Gaming subscribers, it means that there’s not as much circulation or word of mouth on them. Once they’re downloaded, it’s pretty much done. Each of its competitors makes the announcement and release of new free games much more engaging.
Xbox Game Pass typically reveals two weeks at a time or so, but it still packs in plenty of surprises month after month. It also focuses on day one titles and has an awesome social media presence, down to teasing games via “Melissa McGamePass.” Epic Games Store releases its games for a week and announces the next set of games, delivering and building hype at the same time. Even PS Plus, which is only usually 2-3 free games every month, gets a ton of word of mouth by revealing them on the final Wednesday and releasing them on the first Tuesday of every month.
If Amazon Prime Gaming stretched its monthly releases over a month, made the announcement of them more engaging, and perhaps even gave them a shorter time to be claimed (a week), it would go a long way in making sure no one is missing out on the benefits of Amazon Prime. After all, there are plenty of benefits that could reasonably stay monthly, like in-game items and skins, but making a bigger deal of its free games would go a long way in putting Prime Gaming into the same conversations as its competitors.
Amazon Prime Gaming subscribers get a handful of free games every month.
Source: Statista
When Joshua Duckworth received Pokemon Yellow for Christmas at 5-years-old, his fate as a gamer was set. Since then, he’s been involved with every step of the gaming industries’ growth from the golden PS1 era and the dying days of the arcade to any current gaming trend. When he’s not writing, playing his own games, or thinking about writing or playing his games, he’s probably the second player to his son’s Pokemon Let’s Go, Pikachu! file. Joshua has an MA degree in English from Jacksonville State University, and the best way to contact him is at jduckworth874@gmail.com.
