Following the final day of E3, fans have learned that Amazon Game Studios, who have been developing New World and Crucible, has laid off dozens of their employees. As reported by Kotaku, Amazon has given them two options.
If employees wish to stay with the company, the affected employees have 60 days to find another position within Amazon. Following the buffer, though, those employees will be provided severance packages.
On top of the disheartening news of people being out of the job, they also canceled some unannounced games. A spokesperson explained how they are excited about the future. They also note that they are working closely to those affected.
Amazon Game Studios is reorganizing some of our teams to allow us to prioritize development of New World, Crucible, and new unannounced projects we’re excited to reveal in the future. These moves are the result of regular business planning cycles where we align resources to match evolving, long-range priorities. We’re working closely with all employees affected by these changes to assist them in finding new roles within Amazon. Amazon is deeply committed to games and continues to invest heavily in Amazon Game Studios, Twitch, Twitch Prime, AWS, our retail businesses, and other areas within Amazon.
Amazon Game Studios had more or less canned their first game, Breakaway, back in 2017. They opted instead to release the racing game, The Grand Tour. The big names Amazon brought onto the team to make hit games like Portal director, Kim Swift, have left the company. Their own game engine, Lumberyard, has yet to cause much traction, either with far better options out there. Overall, Amazon has made an attempt at making a game studio and it simply flopped. But, it’s not too late as they haven’t released their first game yet.
