Amazon Game Studios

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Amazon Game Studios
FormerlyAmazon Game Studios (2012–2020)
Amazon Games (2020-2025)
Company typeDivision
FoundedAugust 7, 2012; 13 years ago (2012-08-07)[1]
Headquarters
Seattle, Washington
,
U.S.
Key people
ParentAmazon
DivisionsAmazon Games Bucharest
Amazon Games Orange County[4][5]
Amazon Games San Diego
Relentless Studios
Websiteamazongamestudios.com

Amazon Game Studios (formerly Amazon Games) is an American video game company and division of the online retailing company Amazon that primarily focuses on publishing video games developed within the company's development divisions.

History

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In 2011, Amazon opened the Amazon Appstore[6] and started to hire developers for social mobile games.[7] In 2012, Amazon Game Studios released Living Classics, a social game for Facebook.[8] It published third-party games for the Fire Phone, like Lost Within and Til Morning's Light and To-Fu Fury.[9]

Amazon first announced that it would create computer games in 2014.[10] Amazon recruited Kim Swift (Portal, who has since left for Xbox Game Studios), Clint Hocking (Far Cry 2), and developers who previously worked on System Shock 2. Amazon sought to make games in-between the industry standards of small and large teams making casual and AAA games, respectively. Amazon Game Studios wanted to make teams of five to thirty people who would work on games for between a year and 18 months with a focus on "creativity" and "craftsmanship", whether the genre is for children or hardcore gamers. Studio vice-president Mike Frazzini wanted to make projects like Minecraft, The Walking Dead, and The Room. The studio also wanted developers to impact the direction of their hardware, between its cloud services and Amazon-brand devices. For example, developers can offload processing to Amazon's cloud services and the Amazon Fire TV has expanded memory as a result of developer feedback.[11] A lot of the company's developers left within a year of the company's founding. Amazon Game Studios went on to publish a number of mobile titles, including the horror game Lost Within.[12]

Two years after the studio's initial announcement, at the September 2016 TwitchCon, the studio revealed its first three PC games: Breakaway, Crucible, and New World.[10][13] Breakaway was a team-based brawler in which two teams of four fight to deliver a ball to their opponents' goal. It was designed for tight integration into Twitch, the streaming service Amazon acquired in 2014.[10] Amazon Game Studios announced the cancellation of Breakaway in March 2018.[14] Crucible was a 12-player, class-based game in which players competed to become the last man standing. Crucible was launched in May 2020, but also cancelled later that year, with Relentless Studios citing "inability to see a sustained future" as the cause. New World is a massively multiplayer sandbox game with a supernatural colonial United States theme. Players can form settlements, fight each other, or fight monsters out in the world.[13] Crucible launched on May 20, 2020, while New World was released on September 28, 2021, after a 2nd pushback date was announced on July 10, 2020, and a 3rd on August 31, 2021. In August 2018, Christoph Hartmann, co-founder of video game publisher 2K Games – a wholly owned subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive – became the new Vice President of Amazon Game Studios working under Mike Frazzini.

In June 2019, during E3 week it was announced that layoffs hit the company. At this time it was unknown how many people were impacted. However, "multiple" unannounced projects had been cancelled.[15] The company had been involved with a The Lord of the Rings MMO with Leyou since the middle of 2019.[16] However, in April 2021, following Tencent's purchase of Leyou in December 2020, contractual disputes between Amazon and Tencent led Amazon to cancel further development of the game.[17]

The company has three game development studios in San Diego,[18] Seattle,[19] and Orange County.[20][21][22] In March 2021, Amazon opened a new development studio in Montreal, Quebec, led by former members of Ubisoft Montreal behind Rainbow Six: Siege, Luc Bouchard, Xavier Marquis, Alexandre Remy, and Romain Rimokh.[23] During a major leak of Twitch's source code in October 2021, it was revealed that Amazon Games was working on a competitor to Steam, codenamed "Vapor".[24] New World launched on September 28, 2021, reaching 707,000 concurrent players at its peak on launch day.[25]

Lost Ark is a massively multiplayer online action role-playing game (MMOARPG) developed by Tripod Studio and Smilegate's game development subsidiary Smilegate RPG. It was fully released in the Korean region on December 4, 2018. The game was also released in North America, South America, and Europe on February 11, 2022 by Amazon Games. Within twenty-four hours of release, it became the second most played game on Steam.[26]

On September 22, 2021, Amazon Games announced it will publish a new title from game developer Glowmade. Based in Guildford, England, Glowmade’s staff includes veterans of Lionhead Studios. This game for Amazon will be a new IP focusing on online cooperative play.[27] In March 2022, studio head Mike Frazzini stepped down.[28] In April 2023, Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann wrote a memo to staff about laying off roughly 100 employees across its video games division.[29] In November 2023, Amazon eliminated over 180 employees, resulting in the shuttering of the Crown Twitch channel and the closing of Amazon's Game Growth team in an effort to focus Prime Gaming benefits on free games.[30] In May 2024, Amazon Games opened its first European studio in Bucharest.[31][32][33]

Amazon cut about 14,000 jobs company-wide in October 2025, including "significant role reductions" within Amazon Games, according to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News. These cuts required the division to reduce work on its larger titles, including ending development of New World and turning off the servers in 2026, and focusing efforts on Luna and the publishing division.[34] The company later sold its Montreal studio and the game it was developing March of Giants to Ubisoft in December 2025.[35]

Divisions

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Game development divisions include:[36][37][38][39]

Amazon Games application

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The company offers the Microsoft Windows launcher application Amazon Games since 2019, which is used to install some games redeemed from Prime Gaming.[44]

Technology

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Games

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Year Title Developer(s) Platform(s)
2010 Airport Mania: First Flight Reflexive Entertainment
South Wind Games 		Amazon Appstore
2011 Airport Mania 2: Wild Trips
2012 Air Patriots[45] Reflexive Entertainment
Simplz: Zoo
Lucky's Escape
Living Classics[8] Amazon Game Studios Facebook
2014 To-Fu Fury[46] HotGen Amazon Appstore, iOS App Store
Tales From Deep Space[47] Frontier Developments Amazon Appstore
Sev Zero[48] Amazon Game Studios Amazon Appstore, Google Play, iOS App Store[48]
The Unmaking[49] Amazon Appstore[49]
2015 Lost Within[50] Human Head Studios Amazon Appstore, iOS App Store[50]
Til Morning's Light[51] Amazon Game Studios
WayForward[51] 		Amazon Appstore
2018 Dragon's Lair[52] Amazon Game Studios Seattle Twitch Extension
2019 The Grand Tour Game Amazon Game Studios Seattle[53] PlayStation 4, Xbox One
2020 Crucible Relentless Studios[19] Windows
2021 New World[54] Amazon Games Orange County, Relentless Studios[55] Windows
2022 Lost Ark Smilegate RPG Windows
2023 Blue Protocol Bandai Namco Studios, Bandai Namco Online Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
2024 Throne and Liberty NCSoft Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
2025 King of Meat[56] Glowmade Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
2026 Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis Crystal Dynamics, Flying Wild Hog Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
2027 Tomb Raider: Catalyst Crystal Dynamics Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
TBA Unannounced project Disruptive Games Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Untitled The Lord of the Rings MMORPG[57] Amazon Games Studios Orange County Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Untitled online story-driven role-playing game.[58] Amazon Game Studios TBA
Untitled narrative-led open world driving game.[59] Maverick Games Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S

Cancelled games

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Title Developer(s)
Nova[60] Amazon Game Studios
Intensity[60]
Breakaway Amazon Game Studios Orange County[61]
Lord of the Rings MMO[62] Amazon Game Studios

References

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  1. ^ Amazon Game Studios Launches "Living Classics" for Facebook: Is It Any Good?, Adweek, August 7, 2012
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  6. ^ Amazon Appstore is now live, Apple is suing for the name, GSMArena, 22 March 2011
  7. ^ Amazon Wants to Hire Game Designer to Create Facebook and Mobile Social Games, Inside Social Games, May 27, 2011
  8. ^ a b Amazon Takes On Zynga, Releases First Social Game Living Classics, TechCrunch, August 6, 2012
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  45. ^ Amazon launches its first mobile game, 'Air Patriots,' for iOS and Android, The Verse, November 1, 2012
  46. ^ Amazon Game Studios' First Fire Phone Games, To-Fu Fury And Saber's Edge, Demonstrate Bad Cases Of Kinect Syndrome, Android Police, July 21, 2014
  47. ^ Amazon Game Studios' 'Tales From Deep Space' Blasts Off Towards A Fire Device Near You, Android Police, November 19, 2014
  48. ^ a b Amazon Games Studios Launches Its First Gaming App On iTunes, TechCrunch, September 4, 2014
  49. ^ a b Amazon Game Studios Releases Free 'The Unmaking', Android Police, December 12, 2014
  50. ^ a b Amazon Game Studios launches new survival-horror game Lost Within on Fire and iOS devices Archived January 14, 2021, at the Wayback Machine, VentureBeat, April 16, 2015
  51. ^ a b Amazon Game Studios Releases 'Til Morning's Light' An Adventure Game With Puzzles And Monsters Galore, Android Police, May 20, 2015
  52. ^ New Extension Experiences Launching at TwitchCon, Twitch, October 26, 2018
  53. ^ Amazon Game Studios Announces The Grand Tour Game, Yahoo, August 22, 2018
  54. ^ New World Review: A Promising MMORPG Game by Amazon Game Studios, Gamblerkey, February 17, 2022
  55. ^ Hands-on with Amazon's MMO New World, where hundreds of players war over a supernatural continent, PC Gamer, August 30, 2018
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  61. ^ Amazon reveals 'Breakaway,' a streamer-friendly MOBA built with Twitch integration, Yahoo, October 1, 2016
  62. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
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