The giant online retailer, Amazon, announced its Amazon Game Downloads store has more than 600 casual titles available, with prices ranging from $7 to $10, and for the next week it is offering full versions of Jewel Quest 2, The Scruffs and Build A Lot at no cost. This is the next step after October’s event, when Amazon made its push into the world of casual gaming with the acquisition of Reflexive Entertainment.

Moreover every game available in the store comes with a free, 30-minute trial. Amazon says store is in beta and "will continue to evolve over time." This model directly competes with that from Yahoo Games and to a certain degree Valve's Steam service, although unlike Valve, Amazon is not yet offering a download service for larger AAA titles from major publishers.

Amazon also said it’s working on a version of downloadable games for owners of Apple Inc.’s Mac computers, but “the exact date for when Mac OS compatible products will be available is unknown at this time.”

By the way it looks now, the service is definitely intended to be one for casual games but Amazon could expand their reach in the future to perhaps even rival Steam. "It makes sense to start in casual games," Greg Hart, Amazon VP of video games and software told Ars. "The games are smaller... it's a good complement for our demographic." He adds that whether or not Amazon moves into "core" PC gaming remains to be seen.

All in all, the brand awareness of the site can't be underestimated, and Reflexive brought with it a large library of games and the know-how to run a sales portal to move them. Both Amazon and PopCap all but confirmed that games such as Bejeweled 2 and Peggle Nights would be coming to the service, and Hart isn't coy about the possibility of moving into the world of bigger-budget PC games.