Will e-commerce giant Amazon make games?
If the clock were turned back two years ago, many people would have given a negative answer to this question. After all, since announcing its foray into gaming in 2014, the market performance of Amazon's games has been tepid. Bloomberg even commented: "Amazon can develop almost everything they want, except good games." ”
In a sense, the free-to-play FPS game Crucible reflects Amazon's awkward position in gaming. Amazon launched "The Melting Pot" in May 2020 and invited several head anchors of its own live broadcasting platform Twitch to promote it, but the game has not been able to attract a sufficient number of players, and it was suspended after only half a year of online operation.
But over the past year or so, things are quietly changing. From "New World", which set off a trend in October last year, to "The Lost Ark", which is now popular around the world, Amazon has launched two popular online games: one self-developed and another agent, which can be described as "two blossoms".
Lost Ark is a free online game with a magical theme developed by South Korean manufacturer Smilegate, which has been released in the Korean domestic market as early as 2019, and Amazon is the publisher of the game in North America, Europe and other regions. Since its release on the Steam Store in February, Lost Ark has dominated games such as Call of Duty: Global Offensive and Eldon's Ring of Law for several consecutive weeks.
Amazon announced this week that the lost ark has more than 20 million players worldwide. According to Steam Charts, the number of simultaneous online players in the Lost Ark in the Steam Store was more than 1.3 million, ranking second in history, second only to the peak of the tactical competitive game PUBG in January 2018 (3 million).
"I don't think any of us expected that Steam of the Lost Ark would jump to second in the number of online players in history." Christopher Hartman, vice president of Amazon's games division, said.
Hartman joined Amazon in August 2018, when the development of The Melting Pot had been underway for some time. Amazon envisions that The Melting Pot will include a tactical competitive mode that competes with PUBG and Fortnite, as well as team battles inspired by League of Legends and Dota 2. However, Hartman pointed out that the "competition" of the "melting pot" category is very fierce, and the game inevitably failed in the end.
"Looking back, it's clear that if the development team had the opportunity to spend more time polishing the game, The Melting Pot would have benefited in many ways." "The lesson we've learned is that if a game isn't good enough, it can't be released," Hartman said. As a result, we postponed the release dates of New World and Lost Ark and reaped the expected results. ”
According to Laura Stu, head of business operations and player experience at Amazon Game Studios, Amazon's distribution team had to make massive changes to its in-app purchase system in order to bring The Lost Ark to the European and American markets. The Korean version of The Lost Ark includes plenty of kryptonite options, such as allowing players to spend money on premium gear before fighting bosses, but European and American players generally reject this pay-to-win mechanic. In addition, the Steam version of The Lost Ark offers more free pets and mounts for new players.
"We spent some time tweaking the lost ark in order to make it fit the psychological expectations of European and American players and to make sure that no one felt like they had to spend money to make progress. In this game, players can either pay for items, or they can accumulate in-game virtual currency by playing. ”
After the advent of The Melting Pot, New World, and The Lost Ark, does Amazon plan to continue making online multiplayer PC games in the future? Hartman said he thinks it reflects where the gaming industry is headed.
"In the future, all games will include elements of online multiplayer because that's what players want. Games that can operate for a long time and have a strong social element will keep players entertained. "According to our product roadmap, we will develop games in many different categories in the future, but we always want to provide players with experiences that continue to grow and evolve over time." ”