Major cuts leave Amazon’s gaming future in question.
Amazon is cutting roughly 14,000 roles across its global operations, and its video game division is taking a major hit. According to Bloomberg, the company is scaling back efforts on big-budget games, particularly its first-party MMO projects in favour of more “casual and AI-focused titles.”
Amazon Games hit hard as priorities shift toward Luna and AI
In a memo to staff and shared Bloomberg, Amazon’s vice president for audio, Twitch, and games, Steve Boom, said that the strategic changes at Amazon Games “go beyond what is happening company-wide.” Over the past several months, leadership had been reassessing its plans “through the lens of our mission to deliver the very best gaming experiences to customers while leaning into the things that Amazon does best.”
Boom pointed to Amazon Luna, the company’s recently relaunched cloud gaming platform, as an example of this direction. Luna, he said, “leans into both streaming entertainment and delivering value for Prime members,” offering a catalogue that spans social party titles to AAA blockbusters. Amazon’s Studio 5 will continue developing “more casual and AI-focused games, optimised for Luna,” following the release of Courtroom Chaos: Starring Snoop Dogg, a social game featuring an AI version of Snoop Dogg, that debuted earlier this month.
Hoewever, that shift means “significant role reductions” for Amazon’s studios in Irvine and San Diego, teams responsible for titles like New World and its in-development The Lord of the Rings MMO, as well as its central publishing group. The scale of the reductions was not disclosed, though the impact is said to be significant.
While Amazon will continue to publish third-party MMOs such as Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty, its own major development projects appear to be winding down.
Instead, Boom noted that the company is “continuing to work with our external studio partners Crystal Dynamics on an upcoming Tomb Raider title and Maverick Games on an open-world driving game.”
Boom acknowledged the emotional weight of the layoffs, writing, “There is no getting around the fact that days like this are hard, and we will be losing team members whose work and dedication have had an incredible impact on our customers over the years.”
Amazon’s track record in gaming has been uneven. New World saw an initial surge of success before losing much of its player base, while its free-to-play shooter Crucible was infamously “un-released” months after launch. A planned Lord of the Rings MMO was previously cancelled in 2021, only to be revived under a different team.
New World itself has also been confirmed to receive no further content updates for the forseeable future. A post penned by the game's developers announced today that “It is no longer sustainable to continue supporting the game with new content updates” and that “The recently launched Season 10 and Nighthaven update will serve as the final content release for New World on PC and consoles.”
Despite its vast resources, Amazon has struggled to secure a foothold in the games industry. Former Prime Gaming vice president Ethan Evans admitted earlier this year that the company “underestimated the power of existing user habits” when trying to compete with platforms like Steam.
As of now, Amazon has not confirmed how many employees within Amazon Games will lose their jobs. The company maintains that traditional game development will continue, albeit at a smaller scale, focusing more on “console-friendly titles, known IPs, or known play patterns.”
