Overnight, Amazon introduced what it calls its new 3D “Gaming Zone”. It’s a neon lit browser toy that vaguely resembles a video shop and also possibly someone’s living room? It’s very strange, and it might even entertain you for a moment, provided you don’t think too hard about it.
When I saw the tweet go up, I thought it could be interesting! What could Amazon be cooking with a video shop premise? What’s the nostalgia play at work here? Will they turn it into a kind of museum for older games? Link you to second-hand stores that sell classics? There are many conceivable uses for a browser doodad that runs this smoothly.
Unfortunately, Amazon has nothing so imaginative or interesting in mind. Its 3D Gaming Zone is little more than a thin strip of dayglo wallpaper over its existing store. You can’t move around in the 3D Gaming Zone without clicking on a clearly highlighted dot. Each item in Amazon’s little 80’s gamer den — games on shelves, posters on walls, arcade cabinets, even the damned coffee table — has a clickable dot on it. Each dot opens a sidebar directly to the Amazon store so you can add it to your cart.
The video store conceit is also a weird one, considering it deifies a retail model that died out thanks to the very brand of digital distribution Amazon exemplifies. A digital store presenting its wares as physical products on a shelf is doubly strange for a video games market that can’t seem to get away from physical media fast enough. Finally, video shops were for rentals, not sales. Like I said, try not to think too hard about it.
It also only seems to work with the Amazon US site, not the Australian version, which is the icing on the cake, really.
You can have a squiz at it here, should you feel compelled to do so. And if you’d like to see some Amazon gaming bargains without the BS, you can check out our daily deals yarn here.
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