Amazon Games Vice President Christoph Hartmann tries to explain the company's gaming goals
Whenever Amazon makes a new movie or TV show, the reason is pretty obvious: the tech giant needs to create its streaming service Prime Video. One of the best ways to do this is to make (or buy) special TV shows and movies. But when Amazon develops a new video game, the reasons are not so clear. The company's upcoming MMO New World It's not exclusive to Amazon's Luna cloud service or Twitch (which Amazon also owns). This game is a regular PC game that you can buy from Steam.
But according to Christoph Hartmann, Vice President of Amazon Games, the reason is simple: You can't ignore games if you want to be involved in any way. to The Verge "It's almost impossible to imagine a world where you can keep up with the fun without thinking about the games," he says.
New World This is far from Amazon's first foray into the game. The company researched competitive games and premium mobile games and made some notable acquisitions. Many of these attempts have failed to gain interest, including shooter multiplayer games. loquats even had a tough time , with a handful of delays on the way to its September 28 launch .
Hartmann, who joined Amazon in 2018 after spending two decades at Take-Two, says he's not surprised the company took this long to get into games. "Just because you're a great sprinter doesn't make you a great mountaineer," he says. “When you find a formula for success as a company or as a person, you copy it again. And we know that one size does not fit all. They tried to replicate the formula that originally made Amazon great, but making games is much more complicated than it seems.”
This exact date is also New World puts too much pressure on . After years of experimentation, the MMO is poised to become Amazon's first real hit; The closed beta saw over 1 million players and was a fixture on Twitch during the same period.
“It has to be our groundbreaking title for Amazon Games to put us on the map,” Hartmann says. “There is a lot of pride for me because we work so hard and it hasn't always been a great press. 'What's the point of making a game?' I know it's easy to say. But there are a lot of people who really care about it, and hopefully it's the game where we can take Amazon Games to the next level and make us more attractive for more people to join.”
