Amazon laid off ‘dozens’ of game developers amidst reorganization

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon has confirmed that it has laid off “dozens” of game developers from Amazon Game Studios amidst a reorganization, and has reportedly canceled some unannounced games, according to Koktaku.

The layoffs game at the end of this week’s E3 in LA, and an Amazon spokesperson told Kotaku that “Amazon Game Studios is reorganizing some of our teams to allow us to prioritize development of New World, Crucible, and new unannounced projects we’re excited to reveal in the future.”

“These moves are the result of regular business planning cycles where we align resources to match evolving, long-range priorities. We’re working closely with all employees affected by these changes to assist them in finding new roles within Amazon. Amazon is deeply committed to games and continues to invest heavily in Amazon Game Studios, Twitch, Twitch Prime, AWS, our retail businesses, and other areas within Amazon.”

The company didn’t say how many people the layoff affected, and according to Kotaku’s sources, it also canceled some unannounced games.

Amazon stood up its gaming division in 2014, purchasing developer Double Helix, hired designers Kim Swift and Clint Hocking (although they left the company in 2015 and in 2017), and began work on a PC game. More recently, Amazon ended development on an announced game Breakaway and might have begun work on some sort of cloud gaming service,

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