Amazon Games is making major layoffs as it shifts focus away from MMOs to its Luna cloud gaming platform: 'We have made the difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA ga...

The VP of Amazon Games says the layoffs are part of the 14,000 announced today, but represent broader "strategic changes" at the gaming division.

Amazon's AI-powered layoff of 14,000 employees will see "significant" cuts made to its game division, according to a new Bloomberg report, which will result in a reduction in development efforts on big-budget games, including MMOs like New World.

The Bloomberg report cites a memo sent to Amazon Games employees by Steve Boom, Amazon's vice president of audio, Twitch, and games, which was confirmed and shared in full by Variety. In it, Boom says the layoffs are part of the sweeping cuts at Amazon, but also represent "strategic changes [that] go beyond what is happening company-wide."

Boom said Amazon Games leadership has been evaluating its plans over the past several months, "through the lens of our mission to deliver the very best gaming experiences to customers while leaning into the things that Amazon does best."

As an example, he cited Amazon Luna, which "leans into both streaming entertainment and delivering value for Prime members" with things like, uh, the "AI-powered Snoop Dogg game where he's a judge."

This is what Amazon envisions as the future of gaming.

Anyway, things are less rosy on the big-budget side of the coin, according to Boom: "While we’re proud of our successes in first-party AAA game development and publishing, we have made the difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development work—specifically around MMOs—within Amazon Game Studios, including making significant role reductions in our studios in Irvine and San Diego, as well as our central publishing team."

Despite the cuts, Boom said Amazon is continuing to work on the mysterious new Tomb Raider game with Crystal Dynamics, which made two rounds of layoffs of its own earlier this year, and an open world driving game being made by Maverick Games.

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Source: PC Gamer (https://www.pcgamer.com)