Amazon is ditching MMOs and cranking out party games

Dear Games team,

This morning we are making a number of changes to our Games business. While you probably saw Beth Galetti’s note earlier this morning about the bigger changes happening today at Amazon, I wanted to dig a little deeper with you all because the strategic changes we’re making in Games go beyond what’s happening company-wide.

Over the past few months, we’ve been evaluating our plans for the future, particularly as we pursue our mission to bring the best gaming experiences to customers while building on what Amazon does best. We believe this is how we will have an impact with customers that matches the scale of Amazon. Last week’s launch of the all-new Luna is a great example of this, as it leverages both streaming entertainment and creating value for Prime members, two principles that are always a priority in our group. Luna launched with a superb catalog of social games and AAA blockbusters, and we have a lot more to come from Jeff’s team on that front…we’re still day one.

We also took a critical look at the changing dynamics of the video game industry and competitive landscape. While we are proud of our successes developing and publishing first-party AAA games, we have made the difficult decision to halt a significant portion of our first-party AAA game development work – particularly around MMOs – within Amazon Game Studios, including making significant reductions in roles at our Irvine and San Diego studios, as well as within our core publishing team.

While these changes are significant, there is still a lot of work to be done in game development. Our Montreal studio recently concluded a successful closed alpha of March of Giants and is working hard to finish the game. Our Studio 5 team has just released Courtroom Chaos: With Snoop Dogg as Luna’s launch title and will continue to focus on more casual, AI-driven games optimized for Luna. Finally, we continue to work with our external studio partners Crystal Dynamics on an upcoming tomb Raider title and Maverick Games on an upcoming open-world driving game.

Throughout the day, Christoph and Jeff will share more details on how these changes will affect you and your teams. Most countries with affected employees have been informed. Our other global hubs will follow local processes and will be informed at a later date.

There is no denying that days like this are difficult and that we will lose members of our team whose work and dedication have had an incredible impact on our customers over the years. We do not make these decisions lightly, yet they are necessary to continue to advance our business.

Please contact your manager or HRBP directly with any specific questions.

THANKS,

Steve