Despite a string of canceled games, Amazon will not shut down its game studio. Bloomberg reports that Andy Jassy, who is poised to take over the CEO position from Jeff Bezos, has pledged support for Amazon Game Studios.
This comes after an extensive report by Bloomberg on the issues that the studio is facing. Mike Frazzini, the head of AGS, denied those reports and now has the backing of the new CEO.
In June of last year, AGS cancelled Crucible, a year earlier Intensity was axed and the year before that Breakaway went on the chopping block. New World was delayed from a mid-2020 launch to some time this year.
Andy Jassy, who will take over as CEO of Amazon later this year (currently CEO of Amazon Web Services)
Amazon Lumberyard, a game engine forked off the CryTek engine, was blamed for some of the development woes – Breakaway, Crucible and New World were/are based on Lumberyard. There have been no official comments about the future of the in-house gaming engine.
Christoph Hartmann, who was appointed vice president at AGS in 2018, loosened up the restriction to use Lumberyard and some teams at the studio are reportedly experimenting with the Unreal Engine, so Lumberyard is not necessarily safe.
For now, Amazon Game Studios will try to work through the rough patch. “Being successful right away is obviously less stressful, but when it takes longer, it’s often sweeter,” wrote Jassy in the email that went out to employees on Monday.
This is in stark contrast with Google, which pulled the plug on the Stadia game studio, which was established not even two years ago (AGS was founded in 2012).
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