Google Play offers free games, movies, discounts

It's been a full year since the Android Marketplace changed to the Google Play Store and the search giant is celebrating this birthday by offering deep discounts on games, movies and apps. 

In a post, Google outlines the Play Store discounts and giveaways for the the one-year anniversary. This includes a $15 gift card when make a first order on the Fancy app, a 10 percent discount when you book through the Hotels.com app and $20 in free gift credit when you download the Gyft app. 

Part of the reason Google changed the name to the Play Store is that it wanted this to encompass more than just apps and that's represented in this birthday celebration giveaway. The Google Play Store birthday also gives you a free book (A Quest of Heroes) a free episode of the excellent Breaking Bad and a free music track from one of my favorite bands, LCD Soundsystem. I've embedded the track at the bottom of the post if you want to take a listen. 

The Google Play Store birthday celebration will also give you some in-app savinbs on the game Royal Revolt, some exclusive characters in the game Playgearz and exclusive content in the game Gnome Village. You can also look forward to a deep discount on the move Kung Fu Panda. 

The move comes as the Google Play Store has rapidly caught up with Apple's App Store in terms of the the quality and quantity of apps. It used to be that the iPhone had a wide advantage in terms of available apps but that is quickly becoming a thing of the past. 

Apple still seems to have an advantage when it comes to app developers though, as it has paid out more than $8 billion to app developers. The Google Play Store is nowhere close to that figure and we're still seeing interesting apps debut on iPhone first and then eventually coming to Android. Some developers complain that making apps for Android is still too difficult due to the wide variety of devices out there, how difficult it is to monetize Android apps and that piracy on Android is rampant. 

The Play Store is making strides though, as Google is making things easier on developers and it's also opening up new ways to make money. The sheer market share advantage of Android also means that developers have to support Android if they want to have a breakout hit.