Amazon has announced that they are laying off 180 more employees in their gaming division.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann shared this statement in an internal email:
“We’ve listened to our customers and we know delivering free games every month is what they want most, so we are refining our Prime benefit to increase our focus there.
With these changes in our business approach come changes to our resourcing, resulting in the elimination of just over 180 roles.
I know this is difficult news and that the impact will be felt widely. It never feels good to say goodbye to colleagues. This isn’t a decision the leadership team came to quickly; it was the result of extensive considerations and road mapping for our future.
We are proud of the work the teams have been doing, pushing into new areas with weekly content on Crown Channel, and finding more ways to help publishers reach new audiences with Game Growth.
But after further evaluation of our businesses, it became clear that we need focus our resources and efforts to deliver great games to players now and in the future.”
So as Amazon is telling their employees, they are backing off from the Twitch streaming business with their Crown Channel, as well as Game Growth. Amazon’s Game Growth is a marketing side business, that helps game developers promote their games.
While Amazon is not as high profile a game publisher, as, say, Microsoft, or Capcom, they have had some limited, and respectable success on this side of the business. They have consecutively released three MMOs from three different companies; New World from Relentless Studios and their own Amazon Games Orange Country, Lost Ark from Smilegate RPG, and Blue Protocol from Bandai Namco.
Amazon seems to be at the cusp of becoming a bigger publisher, given their properties and upcoming projects. This includes a new Tomb Raider game, after they acquired Tomb Raider’s rights, and an untitled The Lord of The Rings MMO, alongside two other projects.
So there’s a lot of reason for Amazon Gaming to be hopeful, but when they started their Crown Twitch channel and Game Growth, the company still hadn’t figured out what they were going to be good at.
It’s unfortunate that these closures to Crown and Game Growth do mean layoffs. Hopefully Amazon’s former employees can bounce back and find their way back in the industry. But this many have been a necessary step for Amazon Gaming to find their place in the industry themselves. We look forward to seeing what Amazon the game publisher has to show us soon.
