Amazon Game Studios: Schreier wonders about the causes of the company's failures
After trying to shed some light on the issues that led to the controversial launch of Cyberpunk 2077, Jason Schreier, with the collaboration of Priya Anand, interviewed over thirty developers and former Game Studios employees to try to understand why a company rich in resources like Amazon are having many difficulties in establishing themselves in the gaming market. Well, respondents agreed to point the finger at the top of the division: "The person in charge has never created a game before. He hired veterans ... and then ignored them."
We're talking about Mike Frazzini, an Amazon veteran who had never created a video game before he was put in charge of Game Studios. According to reports to Schreier, Frazzini would have asked its employees to create innovative and unique billion dollar franchises, and at the same time able to rival Call of Duty in size. According to four developers, a "bro culture" would also develop under his leadership, which would make women feel ostracized and frowned upon by colleagues of the opposite sex. The same scenario has also been described by several male colleagues. According to the developers, "the sexist culture of Amazon Game Studios" is the worst in the whole industry. "
Amazon, we recall, began developing high-budget games in 2014. Since then, most of the projects have been canceled: we are talking about Nova, Intensity, Breakaway and, lastly, Crucible, which closed last year. October. The Grand Tour Game managed to see the light, but was literally slaughtered by international critics. Only the MMORPG New World remains standing, which should debut on the market next spring.
Despite numerous failures, executives have always been reluctant to listen to the opinion of their staff members, who would have also attempted to explain that the depiction of the natives in the game could be considered racist. The top executives finally eliminated the Native American imagery from New World only after hiring a tribal consultant, who agreed with the (unheard) opinion of the employees. According to the developers' stories, a note with the words "Fraz is cancer" was found in a semi-empty office of the studio, surrounded by several "+1" added by other employees.
