Amazon making terrible PC games

[Infinitron]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/245102/Sponsored_Amazon_is_now_hiring_for_its_first_PC_game.php

Sponsored: Amazon is now hiring for its first PC game!

Amazon is committed to gamers, and building great teams who are excited to use Twitch, the AWS cloud, and technical innovation to radically evolve gameplay. We believe that games have just scratched the surface in their power to unite players and will produce some of the future’s most influential voices in media and art.

The team is made of former Portal, World of Warcraftand BioShock creators, and we’re building a team of top talent for an ambitious new PC game project using the latest technology. Our team in Seattle has worked on a lot of other great titles like Half Life 2, Left for Dead, Dota 2, Halo, Infamous, Shadows of Mordor and The Last of Us.

If you want to be on the tip of the spear for game design and technology, contact us. We want people that are driven to make the best games in the industry. We're looking to take interesting risks, and invent!

You can also check out Amazon's job listings today on Gamasutra's job board.

 

[LESS T_T]

Could be a project by Kim Swift (of Portal) or Clint Hocking (of Splinter Cell: CT, Far Cry 2). And looks like more former Valve devs are there. I'm curious to see...

Spoiler

Senior Game Economy Designer

At Amazon, our goal is to create great PC games. We believe in ground-breaking games that can redefine the boundaries of player experience and change the way the world sees digital entertainment. Games have the power to connect people at a massive scale, and creating these experiences will produce some of the future’s most influential voices in media and art.

...

Responsibilities
· Collaborate with the design team to create a virtual product plan that fits the game dynamics
· Defining the pricing and design of virtual goods
· Analyzing community behavior in order to pinpoint potential new virtual goods and services, and incentivize purchases
· Provide analytics metrics to the development team

Nevermind.

 

[Burning Bridges]

radically evolve gameplay

Defining the pricing and design of virtual goods
Analyzing community behavior in order to pinpoint potential new virtual goods and services, and incentivize purchases

sounds totally banal

 

[Athelas]

Will it be as bad as their TV shows?

 

[taxalot]

This is all good. There is a severe lack of PC games after all.

 

[kazgar]

Look forward to a game where you wander through an neverending warehouse, dodging low paid workers who lob boxes of books at you.

 

[Renegen]

This is all good. There is a severe lack of PC games after all.

a severe lack of P2W PC MMOs actually, I'm sure the market will be dying for one more in 3 years.

 

[Jigawatt]

Look forward to a game where you wander through an neverending warehouse, dodging low paid workers who lob boxes of books at you.

I'd play Warehouse Tycoon

 

[Jaesun]

The best games in the industry. Which are all fucking terrible dumbed down console garbage. Yeah we need more of that. Good use of money there Amazon. Glad I am not a shareholder or I would be fucking pissed.

 

[nomask7]

So, they want to hire me, but when I contact them they just ignore me...

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

No audio-related positions?

 

[latexmonkeys]

In before it's announced MCA will be joining the the Amazon team.

 

[evdk]

Look forward to a game where you wander through an neverending warehouse, dodging low paid workers who lob boxes of books at you.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Wonder Woman game incoming?

 

[LESS T_T]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/08/17/clint-hocking-leaves-amazon-game-studios

CLINT HOCKING LEAVES AMAZON GAME STUDIOS

Clint Hocking, Creative Director of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Far Cry 2, has left Amazon Game Studios.

Hocking also spent time at Valve and at LucasArts following his time at Ubisoft before joining Amazon in 2014 alongside Portal's Kim Swift. Hocking has not announced any new career moves. Swift will host the keynote speech at PAX Prime 2015 later this month.

Earlier this year we learned that Amazon Game Studios is looking to hire for an "ambitious" new PC project.

Well, I'd like to see him making immersive sim-y games he wanted to make than F2P "services".

 

[SCO]

Since amazon is extremely evil this is sure to be some kind of MMO with inbuilt advertising and maybe coupons.

 

[potatojohn]

I wonder if Amazon could dynamically generate content so that by playing the game you're solving some mechanical turk job.

You think you and your friends are having fun battling a boss in Amazon MMO, but in fact through the movement patterns of the enemies, the level geometry and the constraints on your own movement, you've just transcribed a 45 minute sermon by some whacko American preacher talking about the gays (payment: $3)

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

You know it's gonna be shit when Clint Hocking leaves but the meme extraordinaire Kim Swift stays.

 

[LESS T_T]

Well, it's not only Hocking: http://www.mcvpacific.com/news/read/three-major-resignations-hit-amazon-game-studios/0154500

Clint Hocking, Eric Nylund and Jonathan Hamel have all left the company.

Amazon Game Studios has lost three of its key employees. Industry veterans Clint Hocking, Eric Nylund and Jonathan Hamel have all left the company.

Clint Hocking joined Amazon in early 2014 after more than a decade at Ubisoft, where he worked on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Far Cry 2. Following his run at Ubisoft, Hocking worked at Valve and LucasArts on unannounced projects.

Eric Nylund who spent more than 13 years at Microsoft working on the Halo franchise and others, originally joined Amazon as its director of narrative design in July 2013.

Jonathan Hamel, who joined Amazon in April 2014 after spending more than five years at Tomb Raider studio Crystal Dynamics, has also left the company.

 

[Chamezero]

we need a :wowitsfuckingnothing: smiley

 

[rohand]

Been done a few times

 

[LESS T_T]

Looks like they've hired more suitable person for this "radically evolve" game: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...igner_joins_Amazon_to_work_on_new_PC_game.php

After a 10-year career at ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2 lead designer Eric Flannum has joined Amazon Game Studios to serve as creative director in the development of a new third-person "competitive, melee-oriented" PC game, Gamasutra has verified through a trusted source.

This is intriguing in light of the fact that Amazon's game development arm lost two of its high-profile designers this summer, even as it began aggressively staffing up to develop its first PC game.

Confirmation of Flannum's new role also comes via arecruitment post he published on LinkedIn, suggesting the company is continuing to pour resources into its Seattle-based game division.

Btw, he was the lead designer of Sacrifice and 2004 Bard's Tale.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

They're trying to eat Chivalry's niche? I knew it was only a matter of time before those business slowpokes understood there was a market to exploit here.

 

[J1M]

We should add a poll to this thread: "How many studios does Kim Swift need to tank before the industry realizes she doesn't shit rainbows and didn't actually design Portal?"

PS: You can't answer "1" because Airtight Games closed shop last year.

 

[Andhaira]

I wonder if Amazon could dynamically generate content so that by playing the game you're solving some mechanical turk job.

You think you and your friends are having fun battling a boss in Amazon MMO, but in fact through the movement patterns of the enemies, the level geometry and the constraints on your own movement, you've just transcribed a 45 minute sermon by some whacko American preacher talking about the gays (payment: $3)

Please...just no. Stop encouraging humanity to advance in the wrong direction. Though i certainly see the above happening with Occulus Rift and VR technology, where not only your sound, but your movement and gestures are secretly recorded as you play a 'game' and uploaded to the 'cloud' and categorized, where marketing companies bid on your behavior patterns to then advertise unique items tailored just to you on the digital billboard outside your moms basement, or right into the VR headset as you play. (and later into the illuminati chip implanted into your cranium upon birth).

Someone needs to unleash the nukes, and soon. Can't wait to get back into the stone age so we can be free of modern slavery bullshit, where men will be free to be men.