Amazon lays off 180 employees from its games division

Amazon is reportedly laying off 180 workers from its games division.

Sources told Aftermath that the company is eliminating the Amazon-backed Twitch channel Crown Channel. The Game Growth team, whose purpose revolved around Prime Gaming, is also getting the axe.

Amazon itself confirmed these sources. It also sent a copy of an internal email to Aftermath from Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann stating, “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.”

This news comes not long after Amazon reportedly hit Twitch with another round of layoffs. While the previous round’s purpose was to rely on outsourcing, Hartmann’s email points to this one being about shifting focus, citing Amazon Prime’s free game offers in particular.

Hartmann wrote in his email, “I know this is difficult news and the impact will be felt widely. It never feels good to say goodbye to colleagues. 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 Game Growth. But after further evaluation of our businesses, it became clear that we need to focus our resources and efforts to deliver great games to players now and in the future.”

Layoffs galore

These layoffs are just the latest in a slew of job cuts within the video game industry. Various studios like Digital Extremes and Ubisoft already slashed jobs, with Unity potentially joining soon.

In total, this is the third cut into Amazon’s gaming division this year. Alongside currently laying off Crown Channel and the Game Growth team, there is the aforementioned previous round in October. Then back in March, Gamesindustry.biz reported that 9,000 Amazon employees were laid off, with 400 from Twitch.

Despite these massive cuts, Twitch is still rolling out new features such as Stories, which emulates features like Instagram’s Reels. Other parts of Amazon’s gaming division like New World also appear unaffected by these layoffs.

Still, this current string of layoffs is incredibly worrying, as it shows how fragile job security is in the industry. Hopefully, all affected will find new employment somewhere where their position doesn’t feel precarious.