It is not every day when you get to witness a disregard for a cherished classic that also demonstrates hubris and a blind ignorance of MMO history, but occasionally you get interview like that.  And it is less common to then get to see the whole thing blown up.

I am referring to the GamesIndustry.biz interview with Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann of a couple years back in which he went on about the company’s plans for a Middle-earth MMO, blithely declaring that people would move to their title from LOTRO because it would be a better game and that you if wanted something that adhered to the books you should go read the books.

Amazon was going to make a game first, and something to do with the Middle-earth lore second, seeming to devalue the impact the lore might have on the game and its appeal, something which might make one ask why they would bother licensing the IP if it was being a good game that mattered.

At the time the idea was ascendant once more with Amazon because the Embracer Group had bought the Middle-earth IP and was looking to exploit it, no questions asked.

Since then we had not heard much.  Not until yesterday.

Yesterday Amazon announced that it was laying off 14,000 workers (and possibly as many as 30,000 ongoing) and is going to embrace AI more fully, two things no doubt aimed to boost the company’s stock price.  There is nothing Wall Street loves more right now that unemployed tech workers and the fantasy that they can all be replaced by the hallucinating plagiarism machine that is AI.

As part of that Amazon Game Studios was a direct target in the layoffs, with the locations in California, San Diego and Irvine, both reported to be hard hit.  Neither location now exists as an option on Amazon’s hiring site, though that may only mean that there are no open positions.

Still, reports are that Amazon’s shot at a game based on The Lord of the Rings has reached its end.  We will never see if Amazon could make a better game that LOTRO, how loose and fast they would have been with the lore, and if LOTRO players would have migrated to the new title in any numbers.  Their hubris will not be tested and LOTRO remains unchallenged.

This also means the end of development for Amazon’s New World MMO, which struggled through a problematic launch which saw the company spending most of the game’s first year fixing problems and implanting standard industry features like a test server where players could go through new features and changes before they were pushed to production, the “test in production” methodology that the studio initially adopted being one of the key problems with the game in the early months.  Amazon has pledged to keep the game going through 2026… but if you wanted to play it, I would suggest getting started sooner rather than later.

This divestiture from video games isn’t hugely surprising.  Amazon didn’t buy their way into video games due to any passion for the industry.  Jeff Bezos isn’t a gamer.  They did it because video games, as an industry, had a really good decade.  Between 2011 and 2020 the line kept going up for the industry, peaking dramatically during Covid.

And when the video game industry ended its golden run, a lot of companies started cutting back.  Amazon has been particularly callous in its management of its so-called Amazon Game Studios.  Cancellations and layoffs were already a regular thing.  This is just “the big one,” the message that Amazon is no longer at all serious about video games.

So Amazon is just following the current trajectory of implosion that the video game industry has been facing in the post-Covid downturn where we can no longer use the term “decimate” as that technically means “one in ten” and we’re probably past that.

The drumbeat of layoffs continue to hit the industry, led by Microsoft and its regular culling off staff to help XBox head Phil Spencer keep his obscene annual bonus coming.

Just last week Netflix purged its game development staff at Boss Fight Entertainment.  And more is expected to come, especially with EA set to be torn asunder in the name of wealth extraction once Saudi Arabia grabs what they want from the company as part of their acquisition plan to whitewash their bloodthirsty regime by becoming an esports hub.

Part of the EA plan is to fully embrace AI, a plan that companies like Krafton, makers of Subnautica and PUBG, are also adopting.  AI means fewer staff in theory.  We will see what pushing development tasks to AI means in practice.  More money for AI companies for sure, and probably worse choices for consumers.

As part of Amazon’s announcement, they also declared that they are going to go big on AI, and have not been at all shy about how it will replace jobs at the company.  No layoffs yet at the AI game group, which recently launched Courtroom Chaos, a game in which an AI driven Snoop Dogg does his routine.

Courtroom Chaos – Now the pinnacle of Amazon Game Studios

This is something your mother would probably enjoy, a chance to laugh at a black man transgressing the norms of “polite society” or something.  That is Snoop Dogg’s shtick for sure these days, and I am sure it pays well, but it isn’t a serious video game with any depth.  It is an attempt to automate Cards Against Humanity.  But you can try it for free on Amazon’s Luna platform if you are an Amazon Prime member.

So what happens next?

Amazon has resisted answering any questions about the once mighty Middle-earth title.  They would like that all to just go away please.  Embracer Group will have to find somebody else willing to pay for the rights to do whatever they want with the IP.  Maybe Amazon can get Ian McKellen to voice a Courtroom Chaos as Gandalf?

There were also a couple other unannounced titles Amazon was working on that are no doubt dust in the wind at this point.

Then there is New World.  That title is a dead man walking if ever there was one.  We all know it.  It is just a question of how much longer it will last.  I am surprised, what with the super duper AWS architecture that the company bragged about, that they are going to pass up an opportunity to do something like rent 4 player New World servers to people.  They are always hungry for some AWS revenue.  But maybe their AWS model wasn’t as flexible as they suggested.  And even if it was, that sort of move would require some prep work, and Amazon isn’t investing any more in big games.

There are also another batch of game developers looking for their next job in an industry that has been shedding such positions for almost five years now.  Amazon says all laid off staff will be able to apply for other jobs within Amazon, but that seems unlikely to pay off.  There are certainly developer jobs outside of game development, if you want to work in a company that is trying to be the “worlds largest startup,” their words.

That translates into small teams, long hours, unrealistic timelines, changing goals, and a constant anxiety about the safety of your position.  I have known five people who went to word for Amazon.  Four moved  on in under six months, all in software developer roles.  The fifth works at the Amazon warehouse seasonally to make a few bucks in retirement.  Not exactly the career oriented model for most of us.

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