The Skylanders Cloud Patrol game is coming soon to the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD with exciting new functionality that will forever change the nonchalant manner we hand our tablet devices off to our bored children. Exclusive to the Kindle Fire version: in-app physical toy purchases.
In the IOS version of Cloud Patrol, players can enter the codes bundled with their Skylanders toys to unlock the corresponding character in the game. The Kindle Fire version takes this functionality a step further, giving players the ability to purchase the actual toys from within the game with, as the official announcement puts it, "the push of a button." With the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD always connected to Amazon.com, such purchases are easily facilitated, and characters are unlocked in the game as soon as the transaction goes through — players need only wait for the physical toys to arrive.
This is brilliant, in an evil sort of way. It's the sort of functionality the creators of children's cartoons have been trying to figure out for decades — how can we make it easier for the children we've enthralled to spend money on merchandise? If Saturday morning cartoons had a buy button on-screen when I was a kid, my parents would have set the television set on fire. Luckily Amazon's new Kindles are already on Fire (sorry).
As you read this, toy company executives around the globe are staring at the screen, muttering "Wait, we can do this?"
I'm sure there will be controls in place to ensure children don't devour their parents' credit cards ordering colorful pieces of plastic. Thankfully children are innocent and pure and would never dream of hitting the buy button all day long once they figured out their parents' password was their birth date backwards.
In closing, be sure you turn off 1-click purchasing before that $.99 app purchase turns into regular shipments of mystery toys at the hands of tiny terrors.