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Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

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Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#21

Post by [deleted] »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #10
kogus wrote: post #4

I don't know if I have ever read a more generic, boilerplate quasi-condolence paragraph than this one: This isn’t a decision the leadership team came to quickly; it was the result of extensive considerations and road mapping for our future. We are proud of the work the teams have been doing, pushing into new areas with weekly content on Crown Channel, and finding more ways to help publishers reach new audiences with…

This comment is becoming a bit of a meme on these layoff threads. This paragraph actually seems less bullshit than many of the corporate messages around layoffs. “This was not a decision we take lightly, and we’re proud of the work these teams have accomplished, but we believe that if we are to succeed we need to take the business in a different direction.” How would you improve it?

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#23

Post by [deleted] »

kogus wrote: post #4

I don't know if I have ever read a more generic, boilerplate quasi-condolence paragraph than this one: This isn’t a decision the leadership team came to quickly; it was the result of extensive considerations and road mapping for our future. We are proud of the work the teams have been doing, pushing into new areas with weekly content on Crown Channel, and finding more ways to help publishers reach new audiences with…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#24

Post by cowboyscott »

Layoffs are always a bummer, and folks in gaming have more than their share to deal with (it seems, I don't actually know how it compares with other industries).

However, seeing the Crown channel go isn't a big surprise. In fact, learning that it is Amazon-produced makes its content make more sense; even as a 39 year old, the programming felt cringy in an overly-produced corporate way.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#25

Post by klyrs »

esafak wrote: post #16
kogus wrote: post #4

I don't know if I have ever read a more generic, boilerplate quasi-condolence paragraph than this one: This isn’t a decision the leadership team came to quickly; it was the result of extensive considerations and road mapping for our future. We are proud of the work the teams have been doing, pushing into new areas with weekly content on Crown Channel, and finding more ways to help publishers reach new audiences with…

That's not how you do it, this is: "Failure is growth. Failure is learning. But sometimes failure is just failure. I think... I'm sorry. I didn't think it would be this hard. But goodbyes are always hard, especially when I am the one saying goodbye. Today, effective immediately, I, Gavin Belson, founder and CEO of Hooli, am forced to officially say goodbye to the entire Nucleus division. All Nucleus personnel will be…

For those of us unfamiliar, this quote is from a TV show, not a real CEO.

Don't get me wrong, it's a damned good parody, but let's not mistake fiction for reality.

Some real ones:

> None of this would be possible without you, our leadership, and our board — thank you for your grit and resilience, your commitment to our customers and your support of our values and people. I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther King said, that “the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand in times of challenge and controversy.”

https://www.pagerduty.com/blog/letter-to-employees/

> We had to lay off 90% of our support team because of this AI chatbot. Tough? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

https://www.boredpanda.com/ceo-fires-support-staff-after-ai-...

And because a picture is worth 1000 words, Braden Wallake's cryface selfie

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/wlg92h/ceos_lin...

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#26

Post by johnnyanmac »

>“We’ve listened to our customers and we know delivering free games every month is what they want most, so we are refining our Prime benefit to increase our focus there. With these changes in our business approach come changes to our resourcing, resulting in the elimination of just over 180 roles"

what an awful PR statement. "y'all wanted free games, so you'll get it at the cost of 200 employee's livelihoods!". Weird to use "we're listening to consumers" as a justification to screw over their own workers.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#27

Post by johnnyanmac »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #10
kogus wrote: post #4

I don't know if I have ever read a more generic, boilerplate quasi-condolence paragraph than this one: This isn’t a decision the leadership team came to quickly; it was the result of extensive considerations and road mapping for our future. We are proud of the work the teams have been doing, pushing into new areas with weekly content on Crown Channel, and finding more ways to help publishers reach new audiences with…

This comment is becoming a bit of a meme on these layoff threads. This paragraph actually seems less bullshit than many of the corporate messages around layoffs. “This was not a decision we take lightly, and we’re proud of the work these teams have accomplished, but we believe that if we are to succeed we need to take the business in a different direction.” How would you improve it?

well for a trillion dollar company, it's kind of hard to suggest "if we are to succeed", but that's not the fault of your PR statement template. It's just plain impossible to pass off "we need to make cuts" when you make that much money.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#29

Post by upon_drumhead »

frabcus wrote: post #8
digdugdirk wrote: post #2

I haven't even heard of the divisions people were laid off from. Does anyone have any background information about what these groups were attempting to accomplish?

Not sure, but I remember clearly this Simon Wardley (of Wardley mapping) blogpost from 2016, which thinks Amazon's Lumberyard will kill Unity and Unreal (amongst others) by doing their normal Amazon play for game development. https://blog.gardeviance.org/2016/02/what-to-do-about-amazon... That didn't happen - these predictions and strategies don't always work.

I feel that Amazon absolutely was positioned to do exactly that, but rather then have the focus and the will to make a real engine, they pivoted to a minimum viable product for a entirely run of the mill game and then was surprised when AAA studios weren't impressed with their big talk about the future.

If they would have held the initial course and built a world class engine, this could have actually changed the world.

But Amazon doesn't have the backbone anymore. They're afraid of making and sticking with the big bets. In a decade, I don't know that Amazon will be seen any differently then Google is today.

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