Amazon
it appears as if it's all casual,
I was really hoping they might have entered a deal with an actual distribution service that already exists, like say steam, or even GOG.com, so that you could apply Amazon.com giftcards to those items..
but oh well. All the games are the kind of games you can find in the $10 section of Walmarts applications and pc games area.. But I see a lot of them are actually up there for $6.99
I don't know, these games don't really tickle my fancy, as I'm a huge Tetris Attack fan, the only other real casual game that I might still pickup is Poker Smash on Xbox Live Arcade, however that is a Tetris Attack clone with Poker Hands.
Is anyone here actually interested in any of these games on Amazon? Somehow I think the majority of purchasers on there will be the grandma-types.
"oh johnny, here's that guitar game you wanted!" *she hands over Praise Hero
"oh man, I said Guitar Hero World Tour, not this!!" *grandma lashes out in anger because johnny doesn't respect the gesture.

It all looks like shovelware, the sort of crap they give away on http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/

Well, as far as gamers go, I'm an old guy, but those wouldn't appeal to me. Hell, I don't have enough time to play the games I'm buying from GoG and new games at retail anyway, let alone anything from Amazon.

a lot of those do look like the sorta thing you can play for free, but I guess making people pay for them is the way forward.
Careful boys, don't get in the way of the progress train, it never stops!

That's a craptacular collection of games.
Most are either children's games or puzzle-solving stuff, like JewelQuest for example. You could probably find free flash games that resemble half of those, save maybe a shinier presentation.
It's not something that will hook experienced gamers in, it's probably just there for non-gaming people to make impulsive purchases because something "looks fun".

There's a "Pageant Princess" right there in the new releases section. Yeah.
It's just a pile of random, crappish games (with a few exceptions) used to lure all the non-gamers who shop at amazon.
Definitely a lost chance though. Like Weclock said, it could be a chance to sell gift cards for existing (and better) distributing services.

they are giving away 3 for free... otherwise I wouldn't touch anything they had

I doubt Popcap would be so quick to jump the boat.

It's a start at least. Amazon may just be testing the waters here before taking the big jump. They already sell music, books and movie digitally so it's just a matter of time before they get video games in there.

I also think that it would cause a lot of frustration and heatache for what i like to call "idiot consumers."
ignorant people you know, they'll be all "i just wanted to buy X game for my nephew, wtf!?"
and look, they got a download instead of a box.
I think if Amazon wants to do it, they need to separate their items into a specific store for it..
and change the name of the site
and don't link to it on Amazon..
talk about it in blogs, put up ads, whatever, but sticking "amazon" on everything imo fails.
ala Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Zune, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Bob, Microsoft Songsmith, Microsoft Crackho, Microsoft Pimpin', Microsoft Paint, Microsoft etc..
or iLife, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, iFarkoff.
come up with something original with it, don't expand your one brand to everything..
is it called Coca Cola Powerade? no.

I actually own a lot of these games. And I like them. On PalmOS (in other words: my cellphone). I like playing them while waiting 90 seconds for the bus to arrive. But I think on PC this is too casual for even the most casual player.

GBA - Tetris Attack.

But if you expand your brand, you show the kind of power you have, and not only that, but it brings in the traffic of the people that feel comfortable with the well known name.
On the topic of these games, I don't think lower budget generic games are a bad thing, I can tell you that I have been playing Luxor 2 more than any other game this past week, actually it is the only game I have played. And I got pretty pumped to see that Jewel Quest 2 was being given for free, I got my girlfriend addicted to Bejeweled a couple of weeks ago and I think she's going to like this too.

I wonder what sort of DRM this is using, if any?
It also looks like you need to use their client to download (and possibly to play). One of the great things about GOG is I can use my own download manager if I so choose. I don't know about how fast GOG's downloader is, but with some services the official downloader is noticeably slower for no adequately explained reason.