The Grand Tour game was the first release of the Amazon Game Studios console, and it was removed from the storefronts within a year. Crucible was the next game to be released from the studio and not only returned to closed beta after its official launch, but closed in November 2020.
Two other projects, known as Intensity and Nova, never saw the light of day after the teams tried and failed to create games inspired by Fortnite and League of Legends respectively.All these canceled and failed projects at Amazon Game Studios have done this despite Amazon spending nearly $ 500 million a year running the game division. It is also important to note that Twitch or Amazon Luna are not included in the amount, the latter of which is under other management.
Frazzini is an “Amazon lifer” who started his career in the Amazon.com books section, where he “endeared himself as a manager there to Jeff Bezos.” He began his role as head of the games division by bringing in some of the best game development talent in the world, including Portal’s Kim Swift, Far Cry 2’s Clint Hawking, Madden’s Richard Hilleman and Everquest’s John Smedley. Today only Smedley remains.
According to numerous current and former employees at Frazzini’s game studios, he consistently ignored much of the advice from these veteran developers, and despite regularly telling staff that every Amazon game should be a “ billion dollar franchise, ” his projects were understaffed. to get. .
Additionally, instead of using leading game engines such as Unreal Engine or Unity, the studio chose to license technology from Crytek to create a homemade engine known as Lumberyard.Although Lumberyard was intended to integrate with Amazon Web Services and could have been a cheaper alternative to paying for the other engines, it eventually became known as an “office bogeyman”. Many said it was “painfully slow,” and developers played Halo or watched Amazon Prime Video while they waited for Lumberyard to process art or compile code. One former employee went so far as to say, “Lumberyard is killing this company.”
Another big problem with working at Amazon Game Studios would be related to the “bro culture” that is cultivated there, in which women often do not have the same opportunities as men. Furthermore, “four female game developers said their worst experiences with sexism in the industry were with Amazon.”
There were stories that they were ignored and undermined by male executives, and in some cases expelled from the company. A source said that a man on the senior management team not only hindered her career growth after disagreeing with him, but that he would then create new management positions over her and hire men to take those positions.
Amazon’s gaming concerns also extend to how they incentivize their employees. While most studios pay bonuses based on a game’s critical and commercial response, Amazon’s stock plan only rewards employees for how long they have been with the company. This has led some workers to choose to “prioritize job retention over everything else, say three former employees”.
Amazon Game Studio’s next project is the MMO New World. Originally scheduled for release in 2020, it was pushed back to Spring 2021 to improve the game’s quality. Bloomberg’s report explains that the project was originally going to be a survival game in which players would take on the role of settlers in a fictional version of 17th century America.
The problem, however, was that the enemies players would originally face “looked a lot like native people.” When developers pointed out Frazzini’s deputy Patrick Gilmore that the environment and villains could be considered racist, he “expressed disbelief.”
Amazon eventually hired a tribal consultant who thought the image was offensive, and the images of Native American descent have since been removed.
Our latest preview of New World’s high-level PvE zone shows a game that may not suit everyone, but one that shows promise and great improvement both in PvE content and in general, compared to the previous build.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.