Amazon Scores Important App Store Exclusive With Top Girl

Mobile and social game developer CrowdStar has brought its popular iOS game Top Girl to Android devices, but the title will be sold exclusively through Amazon's Appstore for the two weeks after its launch. While the U.S.-only Appstore is available on a variety of Android smartphones, CrowdStar says it's partnering with Amazon to distribute Top Girl specifically with the hopes of making it one of the first social games to find success on Amazon's newly launched Kindle Fire tablet. The Appstore isn't ubiquitous on Android devices like Google's Android Market, and it has a significantly smaller selection of apps and games, but Amazon has aggressively promoted the service to attract new users by securing exclusives and giving away a free app every day. Top Girl, CrowdStar's first mobile title and a shopping-themed RPG based on its Facebook game It Girl, saw more than a million download just 10 days after launching on iOS in May. It was also the top-grossing game on Apple's App Store temporarily, ahead of Angry Birds. This release is part of CrowdStar's "Project Trident" strategy, which centers around building social game franchises that thrive on mobile, global, and Facebook platforms. It intends to have Top Girl on 10 different mobile and social platforms around the world by the end of the year. "CrowdStar is entirely focused on Project Trident this year, and Top Girl's Android launch is representative of that," says CrowdStar's head of studios Blair Hamilton. "Now our Girl social gaming franchise is thriving on Facebook, iOS, and Android."