Amazon Games Division Lays Off 180 Employees; Company' Shifts Focus Towards Prime Gaming

In recent times, the gaming industry has seen a massive amount of layoffs. Many prominent esports organizations like The Guard and Evil Geniuses and popular publishers like Epic Games and Activision have laid off a considerable chunk of their workforces. Amazon's gaming division faced the wrath of layoffs in April 2023, with Amazon laying off its 100 employees. As the year 2023 ended, Amazong discontinued its Crown Twitch Channel and Game Growth Team, resulting in Amazon firing 180 more employees.

In the mail to Amazon's employees, Christoph Hartmann, VP of Amazon Games, talks about Amazon's future goals and writes, "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, eliminating just over 180 roles."

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Amazon To Lay Off Over 180 Employees And Shift Its Focus To Prime Gaming 

According to Aftermatch, its notable sources shared the details on Amazon eliminating over 180 employees in its games division. The layoff will be the second instance of Amazon firing their employees from the gaming division. In the mail, Hartmann writes:

I know this is difficult news and that 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.

Hartmann also talks about the company's work with Crown Channel and Game Growth, where he writes:

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 focus our resources and efforts to deliver great games to players now and in the future.

Amazon Prime subscription's gaming domain, Prime Gaming, allows subscribers to access free games and in-game content regularly. Previously, Prime Gaming provided popular titles like The Beast Inside, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Starwars to its Prime subscribers. With the layoff, Amazon's game division will shift its focus to Prime Gaming and provide more content to its subscribers. 

Upon looking at the bigger picture, Amazon has already eliminated over 27,000 jobs, resulting in massive cost-cutting. Thanks to this cost-cutting, Amazon achieved an operating margin of 7.8% in the third quarter of 2023, which is the highest since the company recorded an 8.2% margin in the first quarter of 2021.