Amazon has apparently decided that they need to take over another industry. The giant shipping company has decided to throw its hat into the ring for PC game development. Only in the last few days, Amazon has posted several job listings for Amazon Game Studios over on the Gamasutra website. According to their postings, they are collecting “top talent” for an “ambitious new PC game project using the latest technology.” They also state that the team is made up of creators of Portal, World of Warcraft, and Bioshock. There are no other details about the type of game being made or a timeline for it.
Less than a year ago, Amazon acquired Twitch.tv for a cool $970 million dollars. It is currently ranked as the 151st most visited website in the world, and clearly Amazon sees a way to bolster that acquisition by creating a AAA title of their own. Even though there are no hints to the genre Amazon Game Studios wishes to work in, a quick glance at the most viewed games on Twitch can give us a clue towards where they are probably leaning. The most watched games on Twitch seem to be squad/small team based (Counter Strike, League of Legends, Dota 2, Heroes of the Storm) and free to play (Hearthstone, League of Legends, Dota 2, Heroes of the Storm). Shooters and survival/crafting games are also extremely popular. Although this is no guarantee for the genre Amazon will be headed, one can assume that their recent purchase of Twitch is surely helping to guide their game development process. Either way, a huge corporation like Amazon diving headfirst into AAA game development will certainly be an interesting process to keep an eye on.
What type of game do you think Amazon Game Studios has in store for us? Think it has a shot at making waves? Or is Amazon out of their league in game development? Let us know!
