Amazon Games Gutted: 14,000 Layoffs Slash First-Party and MMO Plans as Focus Shifts to Casual and AI

Amazon is trimming headcount again, and this time the games team takes a big hit. If you follow New World, Lost Ark, or that long-rumored Lord of the Rings MMO, here is where things stand.

What Amazon just did

Amazon says it is cutting roughly 14,000 roles worldwide. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports that an internal memo, sent to staff by Amazon Games vice president Steve Boom (and later published in full by Variety), lays out a reset for the division: focus on what Amazon is good at and pull back hard on making its own MMOs.

That pivot is a bit eyebrow-raising because Amazon has been all-in on the MMO space as a publisher for NCSoft's Throne and Liberty and Smilegate RPG's Lost Ark, and as both developer and publisher of 2021's New World. The New World team in Orange County has also been building a The Lord of the Rings MMO.

According to the memo, there will be significant role reductions at the studios in Irvine and San Diego, plus cuts in the central publishing group. Amazon did not confirm the current status of any existing or in-development MMO projects, including that LOTR title.

What is actually happening

• Company-wide: About 14,000 roles are being eliminated globally.
• First-party MMOs: Amazon is pausing a large chunk of its internal MMO development.
• Studios hit: Significant role reductions in Irvine and San Diego, along with the central publishing team.
• External partnerships continue: Work is ongoing with Crystal Dynamics on the next Tomb Raider and with Maverick Games on an open-world driving game.
• Montreal update: The Montreal studio finished a successful closed alpha for March of Giants and is pushing toward release.
• Luna push: Studio 5 just launched Courtroom Chaos: Starring Snoop Dogg as a debut title for Amazon's cloud service, Luna, and will keep focusing on more casual and AI-forward games built for that platform.
• Status unclear: No firm update on the fate of New World, the LOTR MMO, or other MMO efforts beyond the broad pullback.

The twist

Amazon is easing off the kind of big, expensive MMOs it has been trying to build, while at the same time highlighting Luna-friendly, smaller-scale work (including a Snoop-led courtroom game) and keeping external AAA partnerships moving. It is a noticeable course correction for a division that has been defined by chasing the next huge online world.

The bigger picture

This is part of a brutal year across games. A GDC survey says roughly one in ten developers lost their jobs in 2024, with Microsoft, 2K, and Ubisoft among the companies making major cuts. The anxiety around layoffs and a rush toward AI is not subtle. As one Fallout co-creator put it:

'You are left with a company where nobody knows anything.'

We will see soon enough how deep the creative damage goes at Amazon Games. For now, watch for what happens to New World, how those Irvine and San Diego reductions ripple through publishing, and whether that Lord of the Rings MMO actually makes it to the finish line.