‘Hang in there’, Amazon’s new CEO expresses hope for the game development division

Amazon hasn’t had great success with gaming as its first major video game Crucible came to an abrupt halt. Incoming CEO Andy Jassy, however, is still hopeful about the company’s prospects in the game development space.

In an email to staff, Jassy extended support to Mike Frazzini, the head of Amazon Game Studios, who has been at the receiving end of criticisms.

“Some businesses take off in the first year, and others take many years,” wrote Jassy in the email. “Though we haven’t consistently succeeded yet in AGS, I believe we will if we hang in there.”

He further wrote, “Being successful right away is obviously less stressful, but when it takes longer, it’s often sweeter. I believe this team will get there if we stay focused on what matters most.”

According to a Bloomberg report, Jassy’s message came after an email Frazzini sent to his team. In the email, Jassy tried to address the allegations that the gaming studio had developed a “bro culture” that led to the alienation of women employees. “We have zero tolerance for this type of behaviour, or anything less than a fully equitable and inclusive environment,” Frazzini said in the email.

Apart from Amazon, Google also appears to be struggling with games development. The company just this week announced it was shutting down its in-house gaming studio for Stadia, a cloud-based gaming platform. Jade Raymond, who led the Stadia gaming studios, will be leaving the company.

“Creating best-in-class games from the ground up takes many years and significant investment, and the cost is going up exponentially. Given our focus on building on the proven technology of Stadia as well as deepening our business partnerships, we’ve decided that we will not be investing further in bringing exclusive content from our internal development team SG&E, beyond any near-term planned games,” said Google in a blog post.

That said, Amazon’s struggle in the gaming space is a rather curious case. The company, after all, owns Twitch, which is one of the world's leading live streaming platform for gamers. The platform has continued to grow in popularity even as Facebook, Google and Microsoft Corp. have failed to build their own live-streaming networks.