 | |
| Type | Division |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 7, 2012 [1] |
| Headquarters | , U.S. |
Key people | |
| Parent | Amazon |
| Divisions | Relentless Studios Amazon Games San Diego Amazon Games Orange County [4] [5] Lumberyard Amazon Games Montreal [6] |
Amazon Games (formerly Amazon Game Studios) is an American video game developer and division of the online retailing company Amazon that focuses on the development of video games.
In 2011, Amazon opened the Amazon Appstore [7] and started to hire developers for mobile social games. [8] In 2012, Amazon Game Studios released Living Classics, a social game for Facebook. [9]
Amazon first announced that it would create computer games in 2014. [10] Amazon recruited Kim Swift ( Portal , who has since left for EA), 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. [11] 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. [12]
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 . [10] [13] 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. [14] Crucible is a 12-player, class-based game in which players form alliances to become the last man standing. An additional player will direct the game, letting viewers interact with the game's elements and triggering in-game events. [13] 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. [13] Crucible launched on May 20, 2020, while New World releases sometime in 2021 after a 2nd pushback date was announced on July 10, 2020.
In August 2018, Christoph Hartmann, co-founder of video game publisher 2K Games – a wholly subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive – became the new Vice President of Amazon Game Studios working under Mike Frazzini.
The company has three game development studios in San Diego, [15] Seattle, [16] and Orange County. [17] [18] [19]
In June 2019, during E3 week it was announced that layoffs hit the company. At this time it is unknown how many people were impacted. However, "multiple" unannounced projects had been cancelled. [20]
The company has been involved with a Lord of the Rings MMO since the middle of 2019. [21]
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. [22]
| Year | Title | Developer(s) | Platform(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Airport Mania: First Flight | Reflexive Entertainment South Wind Games | Amazon Appstore |
| 2011 | Airport Mania 2: Wild Trips | Reflexive Entertainment South Wind Games | Amazon Appstore |
| 2012 | Air Patriots [23] | Reflexive Entertainment | Amazon Appstore |
| Simplz: Zoo | Reflexive Entertainment | Amazon Appstore | |
| Lucky's Escape | Reflexive Entertainment | Amazon Appstore | |
| Living Classics [9] | Amazon Game Studios | ||
| 2014 | To-Fu Fury [24] | Amazon Game Studios | Amazon Appstore, iOS App Store |
| Tales From Deep Space [25] | Amazon Game Studios | Amazon Appstore | |
| Sev Zero [26] | Amazon Game Studios | Amazon Appstore, Google Play, iOS App Store [26] | |
| 2015 | Lost Within [27] | Amazon Game Studios | Amazon Appstore, iOS App Store [27] |
| Til Morning's Light [28] | Amazon Game Studios WayForward [28] | Amazon Appstore | |
| 2018 | Dragon's Lair [29] | Amazon Game Studios Seattle | Twitch Extension |
| 2019 | The Grand Tour Game | Amazon Game Studios Seattle [30] | PlayStation 4, Xbox One |
| 2021 | New World | Amazon Game Studios Orange County [31] | |
| Cancelled | Nova [32] | Amazon Game Studios | |
| Cancelled | Intensity [32] | Amazon Game Studios | |
| Cancelled | Breakaway | Amazon Game Studios Orange County [33] | |
| Cancelled | Crucible | Relentless Studios [16] | Windows |
Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in February 2015 and renamed Daybreak Game Company. On December 1, 2020, Daybreak Game Company entered into an agreement to be acquired by Enad Global 7.
Spil Games is a Dutch video game developer based in Hilversum. The company publishes free-to-play games for Android and iOS devices, as well as for the Facebook Platform.
Ludia is a video game developer based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that creates and distributes cross-platform digital games with mass consumer appeal. Ludia produces original and branded properties based on game shows, television series, movies, books and board games. In addition to developing games for Facebook, iOS, Android and Amazon, Ludia has created games for Nintendo DS, PC, Mac, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, with Kinect, and Wii in the past.
EverQuest Next was a planned massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), meant to be the successor to EverQuest, EverQuest Online Adventures and EverQuest II. The game was in development by the Daybreak Game Company, but the project was terminated in 2016.
The Amazon Appstore for Android is an app store for the Android operating system operated by Amazon.com. It is the package app store for Amazon's Fire OS operating system. It was opened on March 22, 2011 and was made available in nearly 200 countries. Developers are paid 70% of the list price of the app or in-app purchase.
Spacetime Studios (STS) is a games development studio, based in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2005 by a small group of experienced PC MMO game developers: Gary Gattis, Cinco Barnes, Anthony L. Sommers and Jake Rodgers. With experience developing such games as Wing Commander and Star Wars Galaxies, the start-up was created with the aim to create Sci-Fi MMOs for the PC market.
Hi-Rez Studios is an independent, privately held American video game company. The company was established in 2005 by Erez Goren and Todd Harris. Hi-Rez Studios' games include the squad-based shooter Global Agenda, the critically acclaimed Tribes: Ascend, the third-person MOBA Smite, the hero shooter Paladins, and the third-person shooter Rogue Company. In 2012, Hi-Rez Studios was recognized as a Top 30 Video-Game Developer by Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra. Hi-Rez are the current owners of the Metaltech license, including Battledrome, Earthsiege, Starsiege, the CyberStorm series, and the Tribes series. With the exception of Battledrome and CyberStorm, the games were released as freeware by Hi-Rez on October 30, 2015.
Twitch is an American video live streaming service operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. Introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv, the site primarily focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of esports competitions, in addition to music broadcasts, creative content, and more recently, "in real life" streams. Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand.
Scopely, Inc is an American interactive entertainment company and mobile games developer and publisher. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with offices in Barcelona, Spain; Boulder, Colorado; Dublin, Ireland; London, England; and Tokyo, Japan.
Wargaming Group Limited is a Belarusian video game company headquartered in Nicosia, Cyprus.
My.com is an international subsidiary of Mail.Ru company that offers games and Internet-related services and products. My.com is working under brands and services myMail, myChat, myGames and Maps.Me. My.com is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with a U.S. office located in Mountain View, California.
Curse is a network of gaming websites. The company is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, and has offices in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Brighton, and Berlin.
Amazon Lumberyard is a freeware cross-platform game engine developed by Amazon and based on CryEngine, which was licensed from Crytek in 2015. The engine features integration with Amazon Web Services to allow developers to build or host their games on Amazon's servers, as well as support for livestreaming via Twitch. Additionally, the engine includes Twitch ChatPlay, allowing viewers of the Twitch stream to influence the game through the associated chat, a method of play inspired by the Twitch Plays Pokémon phenomenon. The source code is available to end users with limitations: Users may not publicly release the Lumberyard engine source code or use it to release their own game engine. Lumberyard launched on February 9, 2016 alongside GameLift, a fee-based managed service for deploying and hosting multiplayer games, intended to allow developers the easy development of games that attract "large and vibrant communities of fans." As of March 2018, the software is currently in beta status and can be used to build games for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, with limited support for iOS and Android and the support of Linux and Mac being planned for future releases. Virtual reality integration was added in Beta 1.3, allowing developers to build games supporting devices like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Z1 Battle Royale is a battle royale game developed and published by Daybreak Game Company. The game's development began after the original H1Z1 was spun off into two separate projects in early 2016: H1Z1: Just Survive and H1Z1: King of the Kill. The games were further split as separate projects in October 2017, with Just Survive dropping the H1Z1 name, and King of the Kill becoming simply H1Z1.
Breakaway was a team-based, multiplayer brawler video game in development by Amazon Game Studios. The game was cancelled March 31, 2018.
New World is an upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) by Amazon Game Studios set to be released on August 31, 2021. The game was previously scheduled to release in May 2021, but was delayed to its current date. Set in the mid-1600s, players colonize a fictional land modeled after colonial America in the Atlantic Ocean. The game will be using a buy-to-play business model, meaning there will be no monthly mandatory subscription fee.
Cygames, Inc. is a Japanese video game development studio established in 2011 by CyberAgent. Mobile and E-commerce company DeNA acquired a 24% stake in the studio in 2012, and Nintendo acquired another 5% stake in 2018, leaving CyberAgent with 69% of the shares and as such, they are the parent company of Cygames. From its formation, the company produced mobile games, initially on the Mobage platform, and from 2013 on Android and iOS. The company headquarters is located in Tokyo while other divisions are located in Osaka and Saga in Japan and Seoul, South Korea.
Relentless Studios is an American video game developer that is based in Seattle, Washington. The company is headed by Frank Castle and is one of three game development studios run under Amazon Game Studios. The other two are based in San Diego, California and Orange County, California. Relentless Studios released its first title, published by Amazon Game Studios, Crucible, on PC on May 20th 2020.
| People |
|  | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Facilities | |||||||||||||||||||
| Products and services |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Other | |||||||||||||||||||
