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Amazon cuts 100 jobs in its games division

Amazon cuts 100 jobs in its games division

Retail giant Amazon is laying off around 100 people from its video games arm.

That's according to Bloomberg, which reports that these cuts will be hitting staff at Prime Gaming, Game Growth and the tech giant's San Diego studio. This comes in the wake of Twitch making cuts to about 400 jobs recently.

“Our resources will be aligned to support our focus on content,” the VP of Amazon Games, Christoph Hartmann (pictured), told staff in a memo.

“Going forward, we will continue to invest in our internal development efforts, and our teams will continue to grow as our projects progress.”

Amazon Games hasn't exactly had the best of luck since it was founded over a decade ago. Despite the wealth of talent that it has attracted over the years, the division has only succeeded in releasing one game – the MMO New World. The cuts to Amazon Games' San Diego studio apparently aren't going to impact the unannounced game that it is working on. Hartmann has said that it will "double down on the pre-production phase". Amazon Montreal is also working on an unannounced project. 

2023 kicked off with John Smedley leaving Amazon Games. The division is publishing an upcoming Tomb Raider project from developer Crystal Dynamics. Amazon is also reportedly creating a TV show based on Tomb Raider.

The company's Lunda streaming service made its debut in the UK, Germany and Canada last month.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.