Why
Has Amazon Failed to Break Into Videogames?
We’ve talked about this before, but Amazon–despite being a juggernaut in just about every other industry–does not have a great track record when it comes to making videogames. The company’s attempt at an
Overwatch clone,
Crucible, was such a disaster that it got pulled five months after months. Most games are hit or miss, of course, but most of the other projects which came out of Amazon Game Studios have been misses. According to Jason Schreier, i.e. that one guy who warned us about
Cyberpunk 2077, and fellow Bloomburg writer Priya Anand, there’s a very simple reason behind this consistent pattern of failure: Mike Frazzini, the guy in charge of Amazon Game Studios, has no history of making games.
According to
Bloomberg‘s report, among the most glaring issues that has faced the company’s games division has been its manager Mike Frazzini, a veteran at Amazon but one with no prior game development experience. That lack of experience, in turn, has tended to frustrate developers when Frazzini would ignore or go against their advice and decisions, leading many to leave the studio entirely.
The report also detailed that Amazon’s in-development projects often suffered in focus and scale, with many teams trying to create projects that would rival established franchises and IP like
Overwatch,
League of Legends, and