In a sudden move, Amazon will eliminate more than 14,000 corporate jobs as part of a massive layoff, with many of these job losses affecting the tech giant’s gaming division, according to a new Bloomberg report.
According to a memo that Bloomberg saw, the job cuts largely fall on Amazon’s offices in Irvine and San Diego. It’s unclear exactly how many of the 14,000 jobs are part of the company’s gaming division, but the central publishing unit has been hit, with the intention of reducing work on big-budget games and MMOs.
Steve Boom, Amazon’s vice president of Audio, Twitch, and Games, said in an email that it was a “difficult decision” to make despite the successes of the company’s first-party AAA game development and publishing teams.
“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,” he said.
Two of the biggest titles Amazon has under its belt are Lost Ark and New World, massive multiplayer online RPGs that received a pretty OK critical reception. Released in 2021, New World was the company’s first foray into game development, and the game is now available on consoles after an initial PC launch. 2022’s Lost Ark, meanwhile, is still only available on PC and published by Amazon’s publishing division.
The company reportedly has other games in the works, including untitled Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider MMOs, but it’s safe to assume those are shelved now.
This news comes two years after Amazon laid off roughly 100 employees in its gaming division, with Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann promising in April 2023 that the company would “continue to invest in our internal development efforts, and our teams will continue to grow as our projects progress.”
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