Amazon: WHAT IS WRONG?

The rainforest died for this?

So picture this; you're rich. No, not just rich. I'm talking Rich. I'm talking buying a plot on the moon to stencil your face on it rich. I'm talking chopping down the rainforest for firewood rich. There's no one out there with the resources at their disposal that you have, the ready customer base, the ability to hire talent, and yet you cannot, for the life of you, release a game. Just what in the heck is wrong with you? Now don't get me wrong, I know that the game industry isn't for everyone, the arts in general are a frustrating pursuit for any company to go down. It represents an approach wherein you can't just narrow success down to those specific margins, because ingenuity and the wily whims of imagination are your two most key resources. How do you ration that? How do you summon it? It's a nightmare. So sure, success in building the biggest retailer in the western world that has almost single handily killed highstreets everywhere doesn't necessary translate over to video game success. But you'd figure they'd at least be able to buy success. Or the parameters that would make success attainable. But not Amazon, oh no. They're trapped in a hell of their own creation right now.

Amazon Game Studios (Now Amazon Games) have been around since 2012. Can you believe that? It's almost been a decade since they've been on the scene and they exist as more of a meme than a legitimate video game studio. And I'm spoken about them before, you bet that I have, but it's never been to do more than point at laugh of the failings of a company with literal billions in bloodmoney behind it. So in that sense I don't feel all that bad for the flailing or the floundering, nor do I really feel bad for the developers scooped up by Amazon thinking that they'd get an easy payday before being wasted like scrap because they didn't bother do any research behind the actual credibility of the studio hiring them. Okay, maybe that's not entirely fair; I'm sure some of these devs most have known the reputation and adopted a bit of the ol' messiah complex. "Sure, every other attempt to make this studio work has failed but I'm going to be the one to turn the tide. Of course I am. I'm X developer, I can do anything!" Well in the end the posturing was for naught, Amazon have been a mess and seemingly will continue to be one until further notice.

Starting off making/publishing app titles was never going to be the end game for Amazon Game Studios, but maybe it should have been because back then they at least actually finished titles. I can't exactly speak to the quality of 'Simplz: Zoo', 'To-Fu Fury' or... wait, 'Dragon's Lair'? Why is that- ya'll didn't make that game, Don Bluth did forever ago! They just gonna buy up the rights and pretend that's their game, huh? Talk about disrespectful... But anyway, as questionable as that library is we can conclude that those are real games that were made and could be played at least at some point. From then they wanted to go ahead and make this MOBA type game to capitalize off the league of legends fame, only to end up with a cancelled project codenamed 'Nova'. Then they wanted a cool Battle Royale game because Fortnite just came out and there couldn't possibly be any issues with following that trend, could there? (That project, Intensity, was then cancelled) Then there's the fantasy sports game that actually got a reveal trailer, Breakaway! Which was subsequently cancelled. Oh, and then there's Crucible, a game which actually came out! But that game was hit by so many issues regarding what it wanted to be and what the fans wanted it to be. Eventually it killed it's own player base with ill-devised revisions to core gameplay that destroyed what little unique charm the core game had. Now the game's been officially discontinued, which is sort of like cancelling but even sadder because we all watched it happen.

All those examples were attempts by Amazon to make real games. No offense to their app trash, but real games carry prestige, reputation and monetary commitment with them. You can sell a real game to the public and win a following, gather fans, start a gaming empire! Heck, these are games that might have even made it consoles if cards were played right. Imagine opening themselves up to a whole other demographic of customer! What I'm trying to say; is that this is the real goal of the game studio, what they spent those 5 initial years building up to, but they've screwed the landing every single time. Attempt after attempt to ride the coattails of the popular kid have sent these clowns barrelling onto their asses in spectacular fashion, and it's getting to the point where I'm starting to wonder if the studio's just cursed; because surely at this rate you would have scored one game which is at least released if nothing else! Point in case: These guys couldn't even bring out a game from a brand that they owned and which already has an established fanbase.

That's right, the real reason I'm brining up all of this soiled dirt is because recently Amazon cancelled their plans for a Lord of the Rings MMO, which has probably down wonders for the player count of the Lord of the Rings MMO that already exists... This is LoTR for god's sake; the grandfather of fantasy that has so many legions of fans out there that it transcends fandom and becomes some people's way of life. That was a game that would have sold itself. But it didn't even get the chance to make it to market because of internal machinations. How insane is that? Shouldn't this be the sort of game that Amazon Game Studios reverts all of it's resources to defend? A video game version of a property you wish to capitalize off on your own streaming service in the near future? Wouldn't it be marketing genius to get out a companion video game to that upcoming LoTR series instead of leave the video game LoTR landscape to be dominated by a plethora of games based on the Peter Jackson movies, highlighting them as the definitive adaptation before yours comes out? I mean don't get me wrong, I can't see how Amazon could even entertain recasting Gandalf and cohorts, but if I'm playing devil's advocate there's a way they could go about this which would make marketing sense. But what's driving Amazon today certainly doesn't seem to be logic.

Much has been made of the current head of Amazon Game Studios, Mike Franzzini, particularly since he was accused as being directly responsible for the many failures. Now personally I have to roll my eyes whenever a huge project's death is laid at the floor of one individual, even if we're talking about leadership. Yeah, he takes the fall, but is it really all his fault? But then you look at the number of casualties, and you have to start wondering; what is this Franzzini's dude's deal? Is he the curse put on the studio? Well for one the man has no prior gaming experience before being made head of Amazon game Studios, basically meaning I would have just as good a choice for the role. (Not a good start) Apparently he's hard headed, uneducated to the practices of the field he's working in, lacks creativity in a creatively driven industry, is incapable of even the simplest leadership tasks and is all around just a pathetic waste of effort who probably should have been swallowed by his mother. Huh, I guess you can lay the majority of blame out one person's feet, huh?

But the biggest tragedy in all this, is that the one fully fledged console game that Amazon did manage to put out; (Crucible was Windows only) is a game I stumbled upon years ago when doing my irregular scan of the game store for the worst looking upcoming titles. It was 'The Grand Tour Game', and let me tell you it was disgusting. One of the worst looking racing games I have ever seen, with the only saving grace being the featuring of a four player couch co-op mode in which players could be all members of The Grand Tour team. But wait a second, there are only three members. That's why one lucky individual has the honour, nay the privilege, of being Jeremy Clarkson 2. That's right, instead of just roping in their Stig equivalent (I never watched Grand Tour, I assume they had a Stig) these idiots just recycled Jeremy Clarkson. (Producers for that show better watch out, least they find themselves on the receiving end of a double Clarkson beatdown. Urg, I can just smell the stench of stale beer through the screen)

And so I have to ask the question: What is wrong, Amazon? Or, more appropriately, what isn't wrong? And is this something that can fixed, or is it best for Amazon to pack up their losses and bow out of the gaming market like champs. They've got their Twitch, and that's great for them, but oh-good-lord the development game just isn't working for them. At this point I am absolutely certain that their upcoming 'New World' MMO is going to be a monumental disaster and I'm almost afraid to stand by and watch it. I mean, I will and all, but it won't be with that same anticipatory glee as it might have been before. Because this is just sad now. Stop while you're this far behind, Amazon, no one wants to watch you stumble some more. And whatselse, I don't think anyone really wants you in the Industry anyway, you're sort of a toxic crater of scum that poisons most everything it touches. Kinda like a Stand ability, but a really lazy one that Akari didn't put any effort into coming up with. "Meh, they're gonna be dead in a chapter anyway, who cares?"

Amazon: A death in the family

 And another gone, and another gone

I am a fellow who operates by feeling, first and foremost, and as of so far that has led me right when it comes to the world of gaming. It steered me towards Persona the second that I saw it, which is now already rising to one of my favourite games of all time, it steered me away from Avengers, which is currently dying a painful death because everyone grew bored in less than a month, and it made me repulsed at the proposition of Amazon joining the game market. Okay, maybe that's being a little unfair, I'll admit, but here me out. It's not like Amazon is so far away from the gaming world, they've owned Twitch for a few years now, the premier game-livestreaming platform, and have operated as a digital vendor for gaming and game equipment for even longer. (That's got to count for something, right?) But something about the very idea of them dipping their elongated digits into the gaming pool really makes my skin crawl, thus I find this latest news rather interesting.

Do you remember Crucible, Amazon's free-to-play third person shooter? No? But- but it came out this year, it had a whole cast of characters, shooting gameplay and pretty much everything you'd expect a game with a genre that dime-a-dozen to entail! Yeah, I tend to forget about the game too if I'm being honest, which is odd considering I think I covered it on this blog. (Don't care enough to check) It's a testament to how oversaturated a market is when a game funded by one of the biggest companies on the Earth can be completely lost under the deluge of similar content. I mean- I wouldn't go so far as to say it's indicative of a institutional lack of creativity within their brand, but I certainly think these guys would have a lot more success penetrating into the game market if they focused their efforts on smaller, high-quality projects instead of shooting for that one big whale. But hey, what do I know? I'm not some multi-billion dollar tax-dodging enterprise, I'm just the target audience.

So this Crucible game, it wasn't particularly panned at launch, nor particularly lauded; it just existed in that painful space of average games that writhe in perpetuity. Full disclosure, though I'd assume this would be obvious, I never played the game and nor would I ever intend to; but from what I heard it's only mostly generic, there were a couple of interesting ideas attempted there. (and then promptly scrapped.) Personally I just couldn't really imagine a game who shared the name of Destiny's, a consistent popular shooter, PVP mode doing well; that's just a marketing disaster that you'd have to be positively blind not to see coming. If I recall correctly, the last time I covered this game you couldn't even find it on google unless you specified the publisher. These issues swelled into problems that resulted in a haemorrhaging player base and the decision to swiftly withdraw the game back into Beta not too long after launch.

That was a few months ago, today the story has evolved into it's inevitable eventuality; Amazon's Crucible has been cancelled. (Not with a bang, but with a whimper) This marks, as far as I'm aware, Amazon's very first toe into the big-budget gaming world as an absolute and irrefutable failure on just about every level. It failed to stand out, failed to be received well, failed to gain a following and probably even failed to make a profit. (Unless there were some very dedicated whales out there) Surely this does not bode well for that upcoming Amazon game that some people are actually excited for, note how I don't include myself in that number, 'New World'. Once again that is a title that is attempting to hit a homerun out the bat, only this is more ambitious, has already made a bigger splash and has so much more to lose. Finger's crossed that one turns out better, eh?

Personally I find it hard to shed a tear for the death of Crucible, nor the struggle that Amazon have had trying to break into the gaming market, because I've been too discontented about what this means in the long run. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's a few heartbroken developers out there who really thought they'd worked on something special, but my gripe isn't with them but their paymasters. You see; I don't like Amazon, for so many of the obvious reasons and for a few of the more esoteric ones; I don't like what they represent. Whenever it comes to creative endeavours, be that books, movies or video games, there is always the chance for corruption when something as unfeeling as a corporate entity enters the equations, and typically the bigger the are the higher that risk. Two of the biggest companies in gaming, EA and Activison, are renowned for their anti-consumerist practises that threaten the eco-system almost constantly, and Amazon have already tackled two of the genre's those companies love to come back to, F2P and MMO, so you can't tell me ol' Bezos isn't following in their footsteps.

Now I know this is an incessantly conspiratorial stance for me to take; Amazon Game Studios as they exist now have only released one fully original game and it wasn't a total anti-consumer nightmare before it's untimely death sentence, but as I said: I am a fellow who operates by feeling. When I think of Amazon Game Studios I don't see someone out there to join the ranks of Bethesda, CDPR, Square Enix and whoever else still actually makes games every now and then, and Crucible was just boring enough not to break that assumption. (I'm really knocking this game but I can't overstate how hard it was to try and watch some twitch footage of this title: I literally fell to sleep in the middle of the day) Now my, along with everyone else's, attention has turned to 'New World' to see what they're made of, and I'm just not feeling what I'm seeing so far. Call me the ESP of gaming, but there's some bad juju coming off of this company.

Though let us play devil's advocate for a bit and pretend that Amazon are looking to enter the gaming ecosystem in order to improve the craft as well as make some money, that could truly be great for the industry! With the amount of money that Amazon have at their disposal, the amount of capital they could flood into gaming projects of all sizes could really shift the focus of power both in the console gaming and the PC markets. Imagine Amazon buying up game studios from all over the world and bringing concepts that otherwise would never see the light of day into the forefront, they could easily become one of the big publishers in no time. (And, seeing as how they don't have a console to cater too, it would good for all gamers.) I, for one, would love to see some of these really niche horror-focused start-up studios find a dedicated publisher to call their own, who can really lend the weight to bring these weird and imaginative demos we see pop up every year to life. But that's just one of the many ways in which Amazon could, if they were so inclined, positively impact gaming. I just don't believe that they are, or will ever be, so inclined

So there we have it, in an environment that is practically booming for the video game landscape, Amazon tripped and faltered, make of that whatever you will. All I have to conclude on it is thus; maybe it's not in every big company's wheelhouse to become big Video Game developers. I mean; Disney could even cut it back in the day. Freakin' Disney; one of the biggest dragons in the corporate world. It's takes a special blend of corporate tact, talent and empathy to make head-way in gaming, at least by my estimation, so let that be your definer. Or at the very least just hire a bunch of smarter studios to make games in your stead. What I'm trying to say is that there are multiple options, Amazon, maybe it's time to start considering them.

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