It’s not news that Amazon has struggled to make its big break in the video game industry, but a recent piece from Bloomberg takes a closer look at the years-long effort and offers insight from past and current Amazon Studios developers with about what led to mistakes. his continuous struggles.
Throughout the story, one factor seems to constantly lead to fights in almost every element of game development: a mismatch between Amazon’s own firm management style and what works best for game developers.
The story follows how Amazon’s management frequently removes the carpet from its development teams in a situation that ranges from the wrong priority project objectives, based on trend games from other competitors, sexist and racist tendencies in the workplace, and ignorance of the game development process to list a few.
Many of the compelling stories in Bloomberg’s conversation with more than 30 Amazon Studios developers mention management issues with Amazon CEO and studio vice president Mike Frazzini, ranging from moments when Frazzini’s ignorance of video game production hampered projects and lack of desire. to hear feedback from Amazon’s talented expert developers.
In such an example from Amazon Studio developers, management pushed back against criticism of its game New world, or Roanoke because it was codenamed in developing code, it could be seen as racist due to the use of colonialism and enemies who borrowed Native American images. It took Amazon to bring in a tribal consultant for those cries of racism to be recognized.
Bloomberg points out that issues related to sexism in the workplace is one of the few ways that Amazon Studios is similar to other major players in the gaming industry.
The women in the studio reported moments when they were completely ignored during the meetings in favor of the comments of the men in the company or when they faced professional retaliation because they talked about problems.
The full story about Bloomberg captures several stories for Amazon Studios developers and touches on Amazon’s launch (and cancellation) Crucible as well as the many issues that have emerged from the management decree, which the developers create and use exclusively on Lumberyard, Amazon’s own game engine, to create its games.