Report: Amazon to Conduct Layoffs to Gaming Division

RiccochetJ said:
Not shocked. From 2019 to 2021 they went from 800k employees to 1.6 million. A correction was bound to happen post covid. I bet that these executives absolutely LOVE that people are blaming this completely on AI instead of incompetent leadership though.
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Vast majority of the workers are in warehouses. Also, look at Amazon / AWS revenue between 2019 and now.

I do agree that it's not just AI, it's also incompetence and greed that are causing the layoffs, and not just at Amazon.
 
New World was awesome. I enjoyed their newest content Nighthaven - so strange they quickly killed the game after a nice expansion
 
I know a few L6 and L7 level employees within Amazon and Twitch and this is the 2nd time they've found out about layoffs through a news report. That seems so shitty.
 
In addition to some of the games mentioned here, Amazon has a new open-world racing game in the works (still?) by Maverick Studios, a crew founded partially by ex-Forza Horizon devs. That one is a ways out, hopefully it'll come through any downturn in Amazon business.

www.amazongamestudios.com

Amazon Games signs publishing deal with Maverick Games for new narrative-led open-world driving game

AAA multi-platform game from former Forza Horizon leads becomes latest title in growing Amazon Games portfolio.
www.amazongamestudios.com www.amazongamestudios.com
 
Danny Dudekisser said:
It was on Lumberyard, which wasn't built for New Worlds, per se - it was basically Amazon's ploy to get game developers to get users on-board with AGS. At the time the engine was launching, the pitch was that it was free to use and didn't have the fees that Unreal had, but the catch was that you had to build your game on AWS (so basically, Amazon only made money if the game was online-focused). But then Unreal dropped their fees, and Amazon was left with a half-baked engine that developers couldn't actually ship a game on due to missing functionality. I don't remember if The New World actually pivoted away from Lumberyard, but a lot of people on the dev team wanted to do that because it was such a mess to build in.
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And Lumberyard is CRYengine.
 
CLW said:
30000 employees 3 of which are "gaming"
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14,000 people.

All development on the MMOs they have been working on has stopped, and people have been let go from multiple studios.
Article:
"We've also taken a critical look at the evolving dynamics of games industry and competitive landscape. While we're proud of our successes in first-party AAA game development and publishing, we have made the difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development work – specifically around MMOs – within Amazon Game Studios, including making significant role reductions in our studios in Irvine and San Diego, as well as our central publishing team."
 
Nonehxc said:
And Lumberyard is CRYengine.
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A significantly less functional CryEngine. I think it was based on 3, and then they created a fork that broke everything and didn't have basic shit like Speedtree until well into its life. It's been a loooong time since I was living through that, but that was without a doubt the worst product I've ever had to deal with.
 
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So that's why Satya and his minions scoped in on TikTok this past week... their most recent paper tiger rivals in the modern gaming space have now both folded.

Google irrelevant, effectively unable to offer anything of worth beyond their mobile store, and now Amazon giving up any pretence of being a real dev/pub player in the "proper games" space (I'm sure they plan to have AI do the jobs of thousands of real people churning out ongoing MMO-adjacent experiences within the next 5-10 years or so). Satya's contemporary fierce-competition-that-simply-has-to-be-countered (see Sony BITD, then the wider TV-viewing audience) vanished, so he summoned another. Simply getting out in front of this news before investors yet again begin asking why the fuck? with this whole multi-tens-of-billions videogame thing.

Maybe the last few diehards here will wise up now... if you're still left clinging to hope of a true xbox console comeback at the back end of the year 2025, damn, sorry lads, but that concept was cooked a whole generation ago. Don't get me wrong - I don't mean console generation, I'm talking actual fucking human lifecycle generational time period here.

If Satya's going to pivot MS gaming efforts into stealing the attention and spending power of the likes of TikTok zombies, then feel free to let your imagination run wild a little here and picture the depths they might plunge in terms of content, engagement and strategy with that mandate.

Salty, fatty finger foods rather than real meals on the menu, that used to be the go-to analogy. this seems way more carcinogenic.

Stay hungry.
 
username12 said:
People complaining about not wanting to go into an office to work are about to get what they asked for.
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This has nothing to do with it, it looks like another 'AI is stealing our jobs' thing.

Also this is one of the most retarded trains of thought I come across. If you can do your job almost completely remote, why spend time and money on travelling into an office? It doesn't make any sense and I have no idea why anyone would look at remote working as a bad thing. I assume anyone against remote working is either 50+ or cannot work remotely because their job doesn't allow for that.
 
Episode 2 Whatever GIF
 
Sad i really liked new world. Even when it was popular to hate it back then i still always felt like it brought something new and fresh to the mmorpg genre...
 
Lucifers Beard said:
This has nothing to do with it, it looks like another 'AI is stealing our jobs' thing.

Also this is one of the most retarded trains of thought I come across. If you can do your job almost completely remote, why spend time and money on travelling into an office? It doesn't make any sense and I have no idea why anyone would look at remote working as a bad thing. I assume anyone against remote working is either 50+ or cannot work remotely because their job doesn't allow for that.
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If you can do your job remotely, guess what. Someone else can, too. Much cheaper. In another state or in another country. If they have no physical presence, companies have much less incentive to hire in overpriced regions. People don't realize they're setting themselves up to be replaced. There is no concept of how our actions today may backfire tomorrow, and no preparation for a rainy day. I went into the office during the "pandemic" when it was optional. I was neither over 50 nor required to do so, but it's the principle. If I'm going to say things, I'm going to back them up through my actions.
 
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Loomy said:
14,000 people.

All development on the MMOs they have been working on has stopped, and people have been let go from multiple studios.
Article:
"We've also taken a critical look at the evolving dynamics of games industry and competitive landscape. While we're proud of our successes in first-party AAA game development and publishing, we have made the difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development work – specifically around MMOs – within Amazon Game Studios, including making significant role reductions in our studios in Irvine and San Diego, as well as our central publishing team."
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14K is reportedly just a start.
 
StereoVsn said:
14K is reportedly just a start.
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Yeah ~30k is still the reported total. I think this is just corporate staff so far too.

A few years ago I interviewed for a job there designing UIs for managing the warehouse robots and other automated stocking/searching systems and other warehouse management stuff.

I can't imagine how much further along those are now, and how long until we see mass warehouse layoffs too.
 
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Loomy said:
Yeah ~30k is still the reported total. I think this is just corporate staff so far too.

A few years ago I interviewed for a job there designing UIs for managing the warehouse robots and other automated stocking/searching systems and other warehouse management stuff.

I can't imagine how much further along those are now, and how long until we see mass warehouse layoffs too.
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Amazon was saying within a year potentially they are going to have robots being able to replace 80% of human work in warehouses.

The plan is to slow/not hire, slow seasonal hiring, setup smaller, almost fully automated warehouses closer to customers.

I think we are going to see millions lose their jobs within next few years. And it's not just Amazon as Walmart is looking to do the same alongside other companies.

And white collar work is going to be decimated. We are already seeing initial phases. Bunch of large companies aren't planning to hire and lower head count through attrition even if they don't immediately lay off people.
 
Lucifers Beard said:
This has nothing to do with it, it looks like another 'AI is stealing our jobs' thing.

Also this is one of the most retarded trains of thought I come across. If you can do your job almost completely remote, why spend time and money on travelling into an office? It doesn't make any sense and I have no idea why anyone would look at remote working as a bad thing. I assume anyone against remote working is either 50+ or cannot work remotely because their job doesn't allow for that.
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The things you do between your reported work on average creates a soft value for the employer. There are plenty of people who can't do their job almost completely remote. These may be the same people who decide who to promote, hire, and fire. They will grow resentful of you for not putting in effort. A paper employee doesn't see the same opportunity as an in-person employee.

Societal issues such as the inability for a downtown metro to function without foot traffic or fairness will mean you always have someone biased against you as a WFH employee even if you hate society. Perpetually the outsider. On average we don't output as much work at home as we do in the office all other things being equal, and that IS just my opinion. Managers have caught on to this(imo) what I consider an obvious truth.

To just live in this culture you have to pretend a lot of bullshit is true that you know isn't true. You have to lie about what you believe. One of the things I'm forced to lie about is the belief that WFH employees work just as much from home as they do a 40 hour work week. I have worked a long time with many people and...yeah.

I close with Kipling who has a relevant comment:

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
 
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