An official memo to CNBC states that Amazon’s Gaming Division has laid off 100 employees, spreading across the company’s gaming group. Amazon Games’ vice president, Christoph Hartmann, has confirmed that the company is cutting off its workforce in the Game Growth group, San Diego development studio, and Prime Gaming. Amazon’s Gaming Division notified the layoffs of its staff via a meeting with the human resources department on Tuesday.
While the situation of the US banks and the general finance is not at its best, the layoffs at Amazon look to be part of a major restructuring process in the company. That said, any company only needs restructuring when the existing arrangement is not working properly.
What the Top Management is Saying About Amazon’s Gaming Division
Christoph Hartmann says the company will treat the affected employees empathetically and respectfully. He also added that the organization will support the laid-off workforce by offering them severance pay, health insurance benefits, outplacement services, and paid time to find other jobs. Amazon is on a roll to cut costs. The company had severed 18,000 jobs starting last year and is looking to cut ties with another 9,000 this year. The temporary hiring freeze and scraping of experimental projects are other ways Amazon is trying to sustain the slump times.
“Going forward, our resources will be aligned to support our focus on content. We will continue to invest in our internal development efforts, and our teams will continue to grow as our projects progress: The New World team in Irvine will grow as we shift some resources to further support its continued development.
“Our studio in Montreal will continue to expand, and is making great progress on their unannounced project. And the San Diego studio will double down on the pre-production phase of their unannounced game, as that project is not yet ready for a full production size team.
“We will also continue expanding our publishing efforts, and we remain very active in exploring and signing new projects where we see great potential, such as our recent publishing agreement with NCSOFT.
“And finally, we are optimizing our retail and backend focused teams to ensure Amazon Games and Prime Gaming deliver strong value and rich experiences for our customers, and are adjusting the team sizes accordingly.”
It’s easy to see how and why Amazon’s Gaming Division has laid off 100 employees. The team has yet to release a successful title that has become popular in the gaming community since the department’s inception in 2013. Their efforts in publishing Crucible went in complete vain. They released the high-budget game but then canceled it in a brief span of time. The PC game New World had its fair share of success during its early release phases, but the interest slowly faded. Fortunately, Amazon’s action role-playing game, Lost Ark, is a good bet.
The company expects to focus more on releasing a solid title, which can bring long-term success to its brand.