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Lost Ark becomes the second most played game in Steam history after just 24 hours

Feb 12 2022

‘Crucible’ proves that Amazon is finally serious about video games

engadget.com

History

In 2011, Amazon opened the Amazon Appstore¹ and started to hire developers for social mobile games.² In 2012, Amazon Game Studios released Living Classics, a social game for Facebook.³ It published third-party games for the Fire Phone, like Lost Within and Til Morning's Light and To-Fu Fury.⁴

Amazon first announced that it would create computer games in 2014.⁵ Amazon recruited Kim Swift (Portal, who has since left for Microsoft Games 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 kids 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.⁶ 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.⁷

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.⁸⁹ 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 2018.¹¹ 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 America theme. Players can form settlements, fight each other, or fight monsters out in the world.¹² 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.¹³ The company had been involved with a The Lord of the Rings MMO with Leyou since the middle of 2019.¹⁴ 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.¹⁵

The company has three game development studios in San Diego,¹⁶ Seattle,¹⁷ and Orange County.¹⁸¹⁹²⁰ 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.²¹ 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".²² New World launched on September 28, 2021, reaching 707,000 concurrent players at its peak on launch day.²³

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.²⁴

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.²⁵ In March 2022, studio head Mike Frazzini stepped down.²⁶ In April 2023, Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann wrote a memo to staff about laying off roughly 100 employees across its video games division.²⁷ 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.²⁸ In May 2024, Amazon Games opened its first European studio in Bucharest.²⁹³⁰³¹

Divisions

Game development divisions include:^32333435

• Relentless Studios (formerly Amazon Game Studios Seattle) is an American video development studio based in Seattle, Washington, which released Crucible in May 2020.³⁶³⁷³⁸ The company is led by Louis Castle, co-founder of development Westwood Studios. Crucible remained in operation until it was closed in November of the same year.³⁹
• Amazon Games Orange County (formerly Double Helix Games) is an American video development studio based in Irvine, California, which released New World in September 2021.
• Other studios in San Diego, California, Montreal, Quebec and Bucharest, Romania.

Technology

• Amazon Lumberyard
• Open 3D Engine

Games

Cancelled games

External links

• Official website

References

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2. Amazon Wants to Hire Game Designer to Create Facebook and Mobile Social Games, Inside Social Games, May 27, 2011 https://web.archive.org/web/20140328095239/http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2011/05/27/amazon-wants-to-hire-game-designer-to-create-facebook-and-mobile-social-games/ ↩

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21. Watts, Steve (March 23, 2021). "Amazon Games Opens New Studio In Montreal With Rainbow Six Siege Vets". GameSpot. Retrieved March 23, 2021. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/amazon-games-opens-new-studio-in-montreal-with-rainbow-six-siege-vets/1100-6489189/ ↩

22. Stanton, Rich (October 6, 2021). "Twitch megaleak reveals secret Steam competitor codenamed Vapour". PC Gamer. Retrieved October 7, 2021. https://www.pcgamer.com/twitch-megaleak-reveals-secret-steam-competitor-codenamed-vapour/ ↩

23. Gonzalez, Oscar. "New World surpasses 900,000 players to become one of Steam's most played games". CNET. Retrieved January 14, 2022. https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/new-world-surpasses-900k-players-to-become-one-of-steams-most-played-games/ ↩

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42. 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 https://www.androidpolice.com/2014/07/21/amazon-game-studios-first-fire-phone-games-to-fu-fury-and-sabers-edge-demonstrate-bad-cases-of-kinect-syndrome/ ↩

43. Amazon Game Studios' 'Tales From Deep Space' Blasts Off Towards A Fire Device Near You, Android Police, November 19, 2014 https://www.androidpolice.com/2014/11/19/amazon-game-studios-tales-deep-space-blasts-towards-fire-device-near/ ↩

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49. Amazon Game Studios launches new survival-horror game Lost Within on Fire and iOS devices, VentureBeat, April 16, 2015 https://venturebeat.com/2015/04/16/amazon-game-studios-launches-new-survival-horror-game-lost-within-on-fire-and-ios-devices/ ↩

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52. New Extension Experiences Launching at TwitchCon, Twitch, October 26, 2018 https://blog.twitch.tv/en/2018/10/26/new-extension-experiences-launching-at-twitchcon-a4d3b32d057e/ ↩

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65. Lyons, Kim (April 17, 2021). "Amazon has canceled its Lord of the Rings MMO game". The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/17/22389533/amazon-canceled-lord-of-the-rings-game-tencent ↩