Amazon Luna was only announced five months ago, yet it already seems to be facing some troubles. Twitter user Matthew Ball discovered on LinkedIn that the project’s vice president, Marc Whitten, has already left the company in favor of a new position at Unity Create, which Whitten himself confirmed not long after.
For reference, Amazon Luna is a new cloud gaming service that allows players to stream games to their computer, phone, or Amazon Fire TV device. It is currently only available through early access, costing $5.99 a month to try a lineup of games that includes Sonic Mania, Resident Evil 7, Control, and nearly 50 others.
Marc Whitten leaving the company now strikes a potentially huge blow to the future of this service. Whitten has a lot of experience in the industry, as he worked at Microsoft from January 1997 to March 2014. He helped with the inception of the Xbox brand, including in its most successful Xbox 360 years. Clearly, the man has plenty of knowledge of how this industry works, meaning Luna could be in serious trouble if he is leaving the project so quickly.
The gaming industry’s foray into cloud streaming has already been a rocky path, as evidenced recently by Google Stadia’s recent departures and shutdowns, and it seems that even the bottomless wallet of Amazon can’t avoid these struggles. The studio’s head leaving within months of a project’s announcement is never a promising sign for its longevity, nor is it an encouraging message to send to consumers this early in its lifespan. With growing competition in the cloud gaming market, it could be difficult for people to justify spending money on a service when it looks like even Amazon’s own leaders do not seem confident in it.
Even beyond the cloud sphere, Amazon’s game division has been struggling in other ways. Amazon Game Studios’ most recent release Crucible ended up shutting down within a year of its launch due to a low player-base and mixed reviews. Likewise, Amazon’s upcoming MMO New Worlds has been delayed from Spring 2021 to August 2021, possibly signaling even more struggles within the company.
Amazon’s game development studios are also reported to have a toxic and sexist work culture. Allowing a studio to devolve into a toxic work culture is always a poor move, especially in a time where consumers are growing more and more wary of the issues that permeate game development. If Amazon wants to break into the gaming sphere in any substantial way, it certainly has its work cut out for it.
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