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Nirolak

Mrgrgr

• Mar 10, 2017

• #1

So you may remember that Leslie Benzies announced he was starting a new game company, and then more recently, he announced ambitious studio expansion plans.

While he didn't seem to have an especially clear idea of what game he was making, or have any statements on where he was getting all his money from, what he definitely knew was that he was using Amazon Lumberyard™ as the game engine, and was very vocally announcing that everywhere.

One might start to wonder if Amazon was actually his funding partner. Well, VentureBeat decided to ask, and here's the result.

VentureBeat said:

GamesBeat: It seems like it helps to have names like John Smedley or Chris Roberts recruiting. Or Leslie Benzies, that was a good one.

Frazzini: I just love what they're doing. I'm so excited. It's a good fit. And a similar story. They want to do this ambitious game and our technology is very well-suited for it.

GamesBeat: Are you seeding these people with funding?

Frazzini: We don't talk about that. But I would say—they're customers because they like the product and they like where we're going.

Click to expand...

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2017/03/09/amazon-has-big-ambitions-in-the-high-end-game-business/

Edit:

Since people are asking, there's nothing wrong with doing this, and it's probably a good idea for them, but they're very coy about it, suggesting they find it a problematic thing to comment on. I think it's worth asking why when Epic and Unity have public grants.

 

H

Hello? This is Hailun!

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #2

Is this supposed to be scandalous?

 

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finsternIRL

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #3

I spoke to a lot of Lumberyard people at GDC, everyone single one of them ended the conversation with:

"If you don't like it, don't want to use it for any reason, or even go so far as to run into a problem with your own code while using us, please email us, and we'll fix or add what you need, we'll even help you with your own code."

 

A

Ahasverus

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #4

Well hopefully it's worth it.

 

coughlanio

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #5

I'd imagine the larger guys probably get a crap tonne of AWS credit.

 

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NeonBlack

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #6

What's wrong with that?

As long as the game works it shouldn't matter if Amazon funds it.

 

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UnemployedVillain

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #7

Paying to have games made on engines/consoles/etc doesn't seem particularly unique or wrong

 

M

_machine

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #8

finsternIRL said:

I spoke to a lot of Lumberyard people at GDC, everyone single one of them ended the conversation with:

"If you don't like it, don't want to use it for any reason, or even go so far as to run into a problem with your own code while using us, please email us, and we'll fix or add what you need, we'll even help you with your own code."

Nice to hear but came across as a "oh god we're desperate to get more people using us".

Their booth was fucking huge too.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree, though it wasn't really out of the ordinary thanks to the massive level of competition and knowing that getting those first big developers onboard is surely worth the effort. Not to mention CryEngine has a bad rep in the industry so they definitely need to be vocal about ensuring you can actually ship products with the engine.

 

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Dictator93

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #9

I see no problem with that. It gets these devs a potentially good engine with some benefits, long-term engine dev and support, and makes sense for them to get them in their online eco-system

Seems rather win-win atm... especially for devs and gamers.

 

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Fireblend

Banned

• Mar 10, 2017

• #10

Yeah this doesn't seem like a malicious thing, just business as usual.

Even the answer is needlessly coy IMO.

 

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Zackat

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #11

UnemployedVillain said:

Paying to have games made on engines/consoles/etc doesn't seem particularly unique or wrong

Click to expand...

maybe not wrong, but certainly not the norm I would assume?

I am ignorant of such things.

 

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Nirolak

Mrgrgr

• Mar 10, 2017

• #12

Hello? This is Hailun! said:

Is this supposed to be scandalous?

Click to expand...

Apparently they feel so if they won't say they are. Other engine providers also do this, but they public state it, begging the question of why Amazon won't comment.

 

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TheLegendaryN

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #13

I think it only makes sense that they want studios to develop with Lumberyard and funding/money helps with convincing people to do so. I'm not surprised. It isn't a scandal, either. It's just business. Hopefully for Amazon, the games that are being made with CryEng-eh, Lumberyard end up being good games so more studios will start using the engine on their own. But competing with Unity and Unreal is hard.

 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?

• Mar 10, 2017

• #14

Hey, if the tools are easy to use and help developers put out games AND the company making the engine is paying YOU to use it, i call that a win win.

 

C

Costia

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #15

Paying for taking the extra risk of using a new engine instead of a well established and tested one sounds reasonable to me.

Edit:
Devs get extra money for the game.
Amazon's engine gets extra experience with real world scenarios.
Unless there is some platfrom exclusivity tied into this, i dont see a problem.

 

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TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.

• Mar 10, 2017

• #16

chandoog said:

Hey, if the tools are easy to use

Click to expand...

Except they aren't, as nobody used CryEngine before because of lack of documentation. Hence, why Amazon is paying people to use CryEngine^H^H^H^H^H^HLumberyard to fix it.

 

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Stranya

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #17

I don't see anything wrong with this, but is it unusual? I presume so, and that, usually, it's studios/publishers that pay to use a 3P engine, not the other way round.

 

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UnemployedVillain

Member

• Mar 10, 2017

• #18

Nirolak said:

Apparently they feel so if they won't say they are. Other engine providers also do this, but they public state it, begging the question of why Amazon won't comment.

Click to expand...

Probably more from embarrassment.