Amazon is making sweeping cuts across its video game division as part of a larger round of layoffs affecting more than 14,000 corporate employees, according to Bloomberg. A company memo sent out on Tuesday confirmed “significant role reductions” in its Games unit, particularly affecting offices in Irvine and San Diego, as well as its central publishing division.
The move follows Amazon’s announcement earlier this week that it will eliminate 14,000 corporate roles as part of broader “organizational changes,” giving most affected employees 90 days to find new roles internally.
Steve Boom, Amazon’s Vice President of Audio, Twitch, and Games, said in the memo that the company is “leaning into the things that Amazon does best.” That includes scaling back development on big-budget titles — especially massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) — and focusing instead on smaller, cloud-based and AI-driven projects.
The company’s Montreal studio will continue developing March of Giants, a strategy title, while external partners like Crystal Dynamics and Maverick Games remain at work on a new Tomb Raider game and a racing title, respectively. Amazon’s cloud gaming platform, Luna, will also continue to receive new “casual and AI-focused” games. The company recently relaunched Luna in Canada with a major overhaul, featuring an updated interface, new multiplayer options, and free games for Prime members, all playable across nearly any device without a console.
Amazon’s retreat from big-budget games comes as it sunsets New World: Aeternum, its ambitious MMO that peaked at more than 900,000 concurrent players when it launched in 2021. The company said the recently released Nighthaven update will serve as the game’s final content drop, with servers remaining online through 2026.
The changes mark another reset for Amazon’s decade-long push into gaming, which has produced only a handful of notable hits. In its blog post announcing the end of development for New World, the company acknowledged: “We’ve reached a point where it is no longer sustainable to continue supporting the game with new content updates.”
As Amazon tightens its focus around Luna and smaller-scale experiences, it’s clear the company is taking a more conservative approach to gaming — one centred on long-term efficiency rather than blockbuster ambition.
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