It’s not news that Amazon has been struggling to make its big break in the video game industry, but a recent piece from Bloomberg takes a closer look at the year-long effort and offering a glimpse from Amazon Studios developers in the past and present of what went wrong has caused the ongoing struggle.
Throughout the story one factor seems to consistently lead to conflict in almost every element of its game development expansion: an imbalance between Amazon’s own consistent management style and what works best for gamers. game development.
The story follows how Amazon’s leadership often pulls the rug out of its development teams in a situation that goes from false project goals based on tribal games from other competitors, sexual movements. and racism in the workplace, and knowledge of the game development process to list a few.
Many of the compelling stories from Bloomberg’s conversation with over 30 Amazon Studios devs refer to management issues with longtime Amazon executive and studio VP Mike Frazzini, dating from times when Frazzini’s experience with game production video hampering projects and unwillingness to listen to feedback from developers hired as Amazon experienced talent.
In one such example from Amazon Studio developers, leadership pushed back against criticism that it was his game New World, no Roanoke as it was codified in development, it could be seen as racism as a result of the use of colonialism and enemies who borrowed Native American images. He forced Amazon to bring in a tribal adviser to recognize these racist shouts.
Bloomberg reveals that issues with sexuality in the workplace are one of the few ways in which Amazon Studios resembles other major players in the game industry.
Women at the studio reported times where they were fully ignored at meetings that were favorable for reporting from men at the company, or times when they were opposed to professional retaliation for talking about issues.
The full story on Bloomberg captures more stories for Amazon Studios developers and touches on Amazon’s launch (and unpublished) Concrete as well as the many issues that come out of a leadership order that devs create and use only Lumberyard, Amazon’s own game engine, to create its games.