Amazon Games (formerly Amazon Game Studios) is an American video game company and division of the online retailing company

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

that primarily focuses on publishing

video games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

developed within the company's development divisions.

History

In 2011,

opened the

Amazon Appstore Amazon Appstore is an app store for Android-compatible platforms operated by Amazon.com Services, LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon. On August 20, 2025 the Amazon Appstore will be inaccessible on third party Android devices and apps bought from the Am ...

and started to hire developers for social mobile games. In 2012, Amazon Game Studios released Living Classics, a social game for Facebook. It published third-party games for the Fire Phone, like Lost Within and Til Morning's Light and To-Fu Fury. Amazon first announced that it would create computer games in 2014. Amazon recruited Kim Swift ('' Portal'', who has since left for Microsoft Games Studios),

Clint Hocking Clint Hocking (born 18 September 1972) is a Canadian video game designer and director. He has primarily worked at the Canadian divisions of Ubisoft, where he developed three titles, and briefly worked at LucasArts, Valve Corporation, Valve, and ...

(''

Far Cry 2 ''Far Cry 2'' is a 2008 first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A top-down shooter version for mobile phones was developed and published by Gameloft. It is ...

''), and developers who previously worked on ''

System Shock 2 ''System Shock 2'' is a 1999 action role-playing survival horror video game designed by Ken Levine and co-developed by Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios. Originally intended to be a standalone title, its story was changed during produ ...

''. 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 ''Minecraft'' is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus Persson, Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java (programming language), Java programming language, the ...

'', '' The Walking Dead'', and ''

The Room ''The Room'' is a 2003 American independent romantic drama film written, directed, and produced by Tommy Wiseau, who also stars in the film alongside Juliette Danielle and Greg Sestero. Set in San Francisco, the film is centered around a ...

''. 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 Amazon Fire TV (formerly stylized as amazon fireTV) is a line of digital media players and microconsoles developed by Amazon since November 2014. The devices are small network appliances that deliver digital audio and video content streamed v ...

has expanded memory as a result of developer feedback. 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''. Two years after the studio's initial announcement, at the September 2016

TwitchCon TwitchCon is a semi-annual Convention (meeting), convention for the video livestreaming service Twitch (service), Twitch. It is organized by Twitch Interactive and focuses on the culture of livestreaming, entertainment, esports and internet cultu ...

, the studio revealed its first three PC games: '' Breakaway'', ''

Crucible A crucible is a container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures. Although crucibles have historically tended to be made out of clay, they can be made from any material that withstands temperat ...

'', and ''

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

''. ''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. Amazon Game Studios announced the cancellation of ''Breakaway'' in March 2018. ''Crucible'' was a 12-player, class-based game in which players competed to become the last man standing. ''Crucible'' was launched in May 2020, but also cancelled later that year, with Relentless Studios citing "inability to see a sustained future" as the cause. ''New World'' is a massively multiplayer sandbox game with a supernatural

colonial America The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the late 15th century until the unifying of the Thirteen British Colonies and creation of the United States in 1776, during the Re ...

theme. Players can form settlements, fight each other, or fight monsters out in the world. Crucible launched on May 20, 2020, while New World was released on September 28, 2021, after a 2nd pushback date was announced on July 10, 2020, and a 3rd on August 31, 2021. In August 2018, Christoph Hartmann, co-founder of video game publisher

2K Games 2K is an American video game publisher based in Novato, California. The company was founded as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive in January 2005 through the 2K Games and 2K Sports sub-labels. The nascent label incorporated several developme ...

– a wholly owned subsidiary of

Take-Two Interactive Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993. The company owns three major Imprint (trade name), publishing labels, Rockstar Games, Zynga and 2K ...

– became the new Vice President of Amazon Game Studios working under Mike Frazzini. In June 2019, during E3 week it was announced that layoffs hit the company. At this time it was unknown how many people were impacted. However, "multiple" unannounced projects had been cancelled. The company had been involved with a ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an Epic (genre), epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book ''The Hobbit'' but eventually d ...

'' MMO with Leyou since the middle of 2019. However, in April 2021, following

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

's purchase of Leyou in December 2020, contractual disputes between Amazon and Tencent led Amazon to cancel further development of the game. The company has three game development studios in San Diego, Seattle, and Orange County. In March 2021, Amazon opened a new development studio in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, led by former members of

Ubisoft Montreal Ubisoft Divertissements Inc., doing business as Ubisoft Montreal, is a Canadian video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Montreal. The studio was founded in April 1997 as part of Ubisoft's growth into worldwide markets, with subs ...

behind '' Rainbow Six: Siege'', Luc Bouchard, Xavier Marquis, Alexandre Remy, and Romain Rimokh. During a major leak of Twitch's source code in October 2021, it was revealed that Amazon Games was working on a competitor to

Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

, codenamed "Vapor". New World launched on September 28, 2021, reaching 707,000 concurrent players at its peak on launch day. '' Lost Ark'' is a

massively multiplayer online A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players to interact in the same online game world. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are games t ...

action role-playing An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG) is a video game genre that combines core elements from both the action game and role-playing game genres. Definition Action role-playing games emphasize real-time combat wh ...

game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

(MMOARPG) developed by Tripod Studio and

Smilegate Smilegate () is a South Korean video game company. It is headquartered in Pangyo, Seongnam, South Korea. It develops, publishes, and services online games on mobile and PC platforms. Established in South Korea in 2002, it is the creator of ''Cr ...

's game development subsidiary Smilegate RPG. It was fully released in the

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

region on December 4, 2018. The game was also released in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

on February 11, 2022, by Amazon Games. Within twenty-four hours of release, it became the second most played game on Steam. On September 22, 2021, Amazon Games announced it will publish a new title from game developer Glowmade. Based in Guildford, England, Glowmade’s staff includes veterans of

Lionhead Studios Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson (British game designer), Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the ''Black & White (series), Bl ...

. This game for Amazon will be a new IP focusing on online cooperative play. In March 2022, studio head Mike Frazzini stepped down. In April 2023, Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann wrote a memo to staff about laying off roughly 100 employees across its video games division. In November 2023, Amazon eliminated over 180 employees, resulting in the shuttering of the Crown Twitch channel and the closing of Amazon's Game Growth team in an effort to focus Prime Gaming benefits on free games. In May 2024, Amazon Games opened its first European studio in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

Divisions

Game development divisions include: * Relentless Studios (formerly Amazon Game Studios Seattle) is an American video development studio based in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

, which released ''Crucible'' in May 2020. The company is led by Louis Castle, co-founder of development

Westwood Studios Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westw ...

. ''Crucible'' remained in operation until it was closed in November of the same year. * Amazon Games Orange County (formerly Double Helix Games) is an American video development studio based in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, planned city in central Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It was named in 1888 for the landowner James Irvine. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the ...

, which released ''New World'' in September 2021. * Other studios in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

and

Bucharest, Romania Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

Technology

Amazon Lumberyard Amazon Lumberyard is a now-superseded freeware cross-platform game engine developed by Amazon and based on CryEngine (initially released in 2002), which was licensed from Crytek in 2015. In July 2021, Amazon and the Linux Foundation announced tha ...

Open 3D Engine Open 3D Engine is a free and open-source 3D game engine developed by Open 3D Foundation, a subsidiary of the Linux Foundation, and distributed under the Apache 2.0 open source license. The initial version of the engine is an updated version ...

Games

Cancelled games

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Video games Amazon (company) Video game companies established in 2012 Video game companies based in Washington (state) Video game development companies Video game publishers