AI before MMOs
Amazon Games’ successes can today be counted on the fingers of one hand, despite the group’s investments in this area. This is why we will unfortunately not be surprised to see that among the 14,000 people sent back to Amazon, some come from Amazon Games.
This is obviously not the only section affected, since many different branches of Amazon are affected, both in the cloud and in payment management. As in many tech companies, these referrals come shortly after the adoption of AI internally. CEO Andy Jassy reportedly said last July that the company needed to rework its workforce while accelerating on AI:
“ We will need fewer staff for some tasks currently performed and more staff for other types of tasks. It is difficult to know precisely what this will ultimately entail, but in the coming years we expect a reduction in our total workforce due to the efficiency gains we will achieve through widespread use of AI. »
It is currently unknown how many positions are affected at Amazon Games, and whether any projects are impacted by this decision or not. Bloomberg indicates, however, that the studios in Irvine and San Diego would be particularly affected. Moreover, it is specified that Amazon will slow down its MMO ambitions :
“ While we are proud of our successes in developing and publishing first-party AAA games, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue a significant portion of our AAA game development work, particularly around MMOs, within Amazon Game Studios, including making significant reductions in roles across our Irvine and San Diego studios, as well as our core publishing team. »
Remember that Amazon will ensure the distribution of the next tomb Raider from Crystal Dynamics, and it’s hard to believe that this whole project is not cursed today, between the dismissals at Amazon Games and those within the studio.