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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

#31

Post by DiggyJohnson »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #27
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I strongly disagree. They are probably looking at it from the perspective of their organization or division.

At what point (revenue/profit/capital) does a company become required to become a jobs program? I apologize for the inflammatory language in my question, but I genuinely can't distinguish it from your perspective.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#32

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #30

I think if the last few years have shown us anything, it's that tech companies aren't good at making games. They just don't know how to do it.

Making games is hard. Your failure modes are the union of software and entertainment failure modes.

Honestly, I find it impressive that any good games are ever made.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#33

Post by nathants »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #32
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #30

I think if the last few years have shown us anything, it's that tech companies aren't good at making games. They just don't know how to do it.

Making games is hard. Your failure modes are the union of software and entertainment failure modes. Honestly, I find it impressive that any good games are ever made.

hold my beer.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#34

Post by johnnyanmac »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #31
johnnyanmac wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I strongly disagree. They are probably looking at it from the perspective of their organization or division. At what point (revenue/profit/capital) does a company become required to become a jobs program? I apologize for the inflammatory language in my question, but I genuinely can't distinguish it from your perspective.

They can hire or fire however they want. That's just business. But if a company posts a 10 billion dollar net income on an earnings call and also wants to pretend that they can no longer afford to pay 200 workers (which, even if they all averaged 200k comes own to 40m dollars, or less than half a percent of said net income), I'm not going to buy it.

I don't see a way to spin that, so I'd rather they be straight with me. Product X isn't make enough money to justify costs of labor, we are cutting expenses to it. Goodbye.

Amazon tends to have good severance so I'm not actually terrified of the engineers going homeless on the streets, but it's more of the way everything is done. You tend to get zero notice for it, you're cut off immediately from all your chats and emails, and you go through the normal charade with recruiters ready to talk about how sorry they feel just as their own studio laid off the last month. You're basically treated as a criminal that needs to be cut off ASAP despite providing value for months/years and you go back to more false platitudes and the usual annoying interview rituals where you pretend you totally care about the company and need to be humble about salary despite that being a big reason (or maybe only reason) you even looked at them.

I'm just tired of all the fakeness.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#35

Post by hughesjj »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #32
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #30

I think if the last few years have shown us anything, it's that tech companies aren't good at making games. They just don't know how to do it.

Making games is hard. Your failure modes are the union of software and entertainment failure modes. Honestly, I find it impressive that any good games are ever made.

Especially at the wage and wlb offered by the industry.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#36

Post by DiggyJohnson »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #34
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree. They are probably looking at it from the perspective of their organization or division. At what point (revenue/profit/capital) does a company become required to become a jobs program? I apologize for the inflammatory language in my question, but I genuinely can't distinguish it from your perspective.

They can hire or fire however they want. That's just business. But if a company posts a 10 billion dollar net income on an earnings call and also wants to pretend that they can no longer afford to pay 200 workers (which, even if they all averaged 200k comes own to 40m dollars, or less than half a percent of said net income), I'm not going to buy it. I don't see a way to spin that, so I'd rather they be straight with…

You didn't respond to my main point about whether its reasonable for an unprofitable organization within a profitable corporation to make this sort of move and use this sort of messaging.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#37

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #30

I think if the last few years have shown us anything, it's that tech companies aren't good at making games. They just don't know how to do it.

I think a good lesson is that when Microsoft got into gaming they had a real long term commitment and took it seriously. They put in the work to understand it.

In contrast, Amazon and Google felt they could buy their way in based on a playbook that might have worked with other verticals. That unsurprisingly failed.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#38

Post by johnnyanmac »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #36
johnnyanmac wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can hire or fire however they want. That's just business. But if a company posts a 10 billion dollar net income on an earnings call and also wants to pretend that they can no longer afford to pay 200 workers (which, even if they all averaged 200k comes own to 40m dollars, or less than half a percent of said net income), I'm not going to buy it. I don't see a way to spin that, so I'd rather they be straight with…

You didn't respond to my main point about whether its reasonable for an unprofitable organization within a profitable corporation to make this sort of move and use this sort of messaging.

which part of "they can fire or hire however they want. That's just business" doesn't respond to your main point?

>use this sort of messaging.

They are free to message it however they want. Doesn't mean I'll believe it's the real reason they did it. I somehow doubt they will get better free games for consumers (or any) as a result of this layoff.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#39

Post by antisthenes »

jarjar2_ wrote: post #3

I think they've found their sweet spot as a publisher rather than a development house. It's hard to make successful games, and just throwing large sums of money and people at a problem doesn't guarantee success.

Publisher in this case being the middle-man abusing monopoly power, as is the end game for pretty much any company in under-regulated capitalism.

Re: Amazon Lays Off 180 Employees in Its Games Division

#40

Post by caffeinewriter »

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.

Tangentially related, I just recently found out that Lumberyard actually was spun out[1] into the open source Open 3D Engine[2] under the stewardship of the Linux Foundation. It's a nice surprise to see that Lumberyard didn't just die out, and is joining the ranks of open-source engines.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20220614090421/https://aws.amazo...

[2]: https://o3de.org/

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