Amazon's widening bet on games: "We're not hell bent on just being MMOs"

gamesindustry.biz:

At first glance, last night's reveal of King of Meat doesn't seem to fit with Amazon's video games strategy thus far.

While it was already known the publisher had signed the next title from UK developer Glowmade, the team behind King of Meat, most of Amazon's efforts since announcing its move into PC and console way back in 2014 have been more targeted at hardcore gamers — and particularly MMO fans.

The company attempted to reach this crowd with multiplayer brawler Breakaway (cancelled in 2018) and team-based shooter Crucible (scrapped in 2020). Amazon has had considerably more success with its two recent MMOs — 2021's New World and 2022's Lost Ark — with a second attempt at a Lord of the Rings MMO in the works.

So where does a cartoonish co-op dungeon crawler with a focus on user-generated levels fit within Amazon's plans?

"Our strategy has always been to develop and publish games of the highest quality," EMEA publishing director Jon Rosenblatt tells GamesIndustry.biz. "We're not hell bent on it just being MMOs. As you'll see with the recent announcement of Maverick and obviously Crystal Dynamics for Tomb Raider, plus the MOBA being made in our Montreal studio, we're actually really diversifying our portfolio pretty rapidly and we want to continue to do that.

"It's really important for us to continue to build amazing games, but also make sure that the games are diverse in their look and their feel. King of Meat was just an ideal opportunity for us to work with a very talented team in Guildford, and really grow that game out into something much bigger than maybe they have planned."

Rosenblatt adds that Amazon aims to branch out from PC and have more of a presence on consoles; King of Meat will be the company's first release on PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch, followed by a console version of New World for Sony and Microsoft's platforms later this year.

"We're not focused necessarily on genres or regions. When we see the right game at the right time, we want