Amazon Games studio head Mike Frazzini quits his role to focus on the family, according to a report by Bloomberg† Frazzini has headed Amazon’s gaming division since 2009 and was instrumental in building the company’s game studio.
“Mike was there at the beginning of Amazon Games, and his leadership and perseverance helped build the games business from the ground up,” Amazon spokesperson Ryan Jones said in a statement. Bloomberg† “Our recent successes with New world and lost ark are the result of the customer-centric, long-term vision for games that he helped establish. We are very grateful for all his contributions and wish Mike all the best.”
Amazon did not immediately respond The edge‘s request for comment.
Last year, Bloomberg released a report in which he outlined a number of issues within Amazon Games, including allegations that Frazzini, who started his career at Amazon with the market’s book division, had no experience with games and often rejected the advice of the developers he hired. The report also claims that Frazzini would understaff projects and let developers “hunt” the latest trends — projects that would ultimately fail, such as the Fortnite-inspired Intensity and League of Legends-Like it Nova that never got out of development.
However, these weren’t the only games Amazon faced. In 2018, Amazon Games canceled his fantasy sports game Break away† and in 2020 it’s drawn The Grand Toura race title based on a show of the same name, due to poor reception. melting pota free to play overwatch-style shooter was one of Amazon Games’ biggest disappointments – the studio canceled the game after it was released and then put it back into closed beta. Last year, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote an email to employees saying, “While we haven’t consistently succeeded yet…I believe we will if we persevere.”
Amazon Games has had success with New world, an MMORPG released last fall, but even this game was not spared a rough release; the launch date was pushed returned several times before finally going live in September 2021. It’s free to play lost arkwhich was initially only available in South Korea has also been well received. lost ark became the second most played game on Steam after the English localization, a sudden spike in players causing server problems and long queues.