Amazon Games
In 2014, Amazon announced that they were looking to get into the world of video game development. As such, a studio was created, staff were hired, and they looked to start producing games. Admittedly, exactly what type of ‘games’ we could expect was unclear. Given the resources of the company, however, expectations were high, if somewhat tempered.
To date, however, the results haven’t exactly been exciting. Why? Well, so far only one game has actually been released. And that was 3 years ago now!
In a report via GamesIndustry, however, it seems that things are clearly not going according to plan. Amazon has sacked ‘dozens’ of staff members in their games studio with a number of unannounced projects also being scrapped.
What’s Going On?
While Amazon has confirmed the staff departures, they haven’t been entirely crystal clear as to the reasons why. This is what they had to say;
“Amazon Game Studios is reorganizing some of our teams to allow us to prioritize development of New World, Crucible, and new unannounced projects we’re excited to reveal in the future. These moves are the result of regular business planning cycles where we align resources to match evolving, long-range priorities.
We’re working closely with all employees affected by these changes to assist them in finding new roles within Amazon. Amazon is deeply committed to games and continues to invest heavily in Amazon Game Studios, Twitch, Twitch Prime, AWS [Amazon Web Services], our retail businesses, and other areas within Amazon.”
You can pretty much count that as your daily dose of business speak.
What Do We Think?
While a number of projects have been cut, Amazon is still working on two major releases. In addition, there is also a third game which has yet to be announced. Well, more accurately, named. At the moment, however, their list of cancelled projects is massively outstripping their completed ones.
Whatever is happening here, it’s pretty clear that Amazon Games Studio might be having more than a few problems. Clearly, not the best of news in an industry that can be so unforgiving to the overambitious.
What do you think? What do you think is going wrong here? Were they too overly ambitious? – Let us know in the comments!
