Long-running Amazon Games boss Mike Frazzini is stepping down
James Batchelor
Editor-in-Chief
Monday 28th March 2022
Mike Frazzini, head of Amazon Games, is leaving both the division and Amazon itself.
Bloomberg reports Frazzini informed staff of his departure on Friday, with a spokesperson telling the site that he was leaving to focus on family.
Frazzini has been overseeing Amazon's video game endeavours since 2009, prior to which he spent five years working in the online giant's books department.
Amazon's road into the video games industry has been far from smooth. The division originally focused on mobile and Facebook games, before Amazon Game Studios announced in 2014 it would create larger titles for consoles and PC.
The first, Breakaway, was never given a release date and cancelled in 2018 after a few alpha playtests. The second, Crucible, was almost immediately taken back into beta after it launched in May 2020 and was ultimately scrapped a few months later.
The Grand Tour, a racing game based on the Amazon Prime Video series, made it to consoles in 2019, but the firm's first major hit was last year's MMO New World.
Launched in September, the game had over 900,000 concurrent players after the first couple of weeks. However, Bloomberg reports that this has since dropped to around 26,500, according to Steamcharts' data.
More recently, the company published Lost Ark, which seems to be faring well.
Amazon is also building up its new Montreal studio, which employs ex-Rainbow Six: Siege developers and is led by the former managing director of Ubisoft Toronto. The studio is working on a new IP and competitive multiplayer game.
Frazzini has overseen all of this, as well as several other cancelled projects, such as a Lord of the Rings MMO.
Bloomberg reports employees have previously criticised
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