Amazon making ‘significant’ cuts to video games enterprise, transferring away from MMOs

Amazon is making “significant” cuts to its online game enterprise and transferring away from MMO growth, it’s introduced.

In a message to employees reviewed by Bloomberg, the corporate stated it could remove greater than 14,000 company jobs, lots of which have an effect on its recreation growth and publishing enterprise.

Specifically, the San Diego and Irvine growth studios, that are liable for MMOs New World and an untitled The Lord of the Rings recreation, have seen important reductions, based on Steve Boom, vice chairman of Audio, Twitch, and Games.

“While we’re proud of our successes in first-party AAA game development and publishing, we have made the difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development work – specifically around MMOs – within Amazon Game Studios,” he wrote.

This consists of “making significant role reductions in our studios in Irvine and San Diego, as well as our central publishing team,” he added.

Amazon Games Orange County (previously Double Helix Games), which is predicated in Irvine, California, launched New World in September 2021.

The layoffs come days after Amazon relaunched its Luna gaming service, which has been redesigned to enchantment to a wider vary of gamers. This consists of the addition of GameNight time, a brand new collection of social gathering video games designed for informal gamers.

According to the inner memo, Amazon will proceed to work on numerous recreation tasks, together with the following Tomb Raider recreation with Crystal Dynamics, and Maverick Games’ open world driving recreation.

“While these changes are significant, we still have a lot going on in game development,” Boom wrote. “Our Montreal studio recently concluded a successful closed alpha of March of Giants and is working hard to finish the game.

“Our Studio 5 team just released Courtroom Chaos: Starring Snoop Dogg as the launch title in Luna and will continue their focus on more casual and AI-focused games, optimized for Luna. Finally, we are continuing to work with our external studio partners Crystal Dynamics on an upcoming Tomb Raider title and Maverick Games on an upcoming open world driving game.”