Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The video game industry is battered. Amazon announced layoffs of 180 employees in its gaming division, adding to a long list of thousands of people in the gaming industry who will lose their jobs throughout 2023.
According to CNBC International, decision Amazon Games closed its streaming and third-party support division, causing 180 employees to be laid off.
The business divisions that were closed were Game Growth and Crown Channel. Now, Amazon will focus on video games developed internally. In the near future, Amazon plans to launch several video game titles such as Throne and Liberty And Blue Protocol. The company founded by Jeff Bezos also plans to develop games based on copyright Tomb Raider And The Lord of the Rings.
“I understand the gravity of this news and the impact it will have on everyone,” said Christoph Hartmann, Vice President of Amazon Games, in an internal company memo quoted CNBC International, Tuesday (14/11/2023). “This was not a decision taken quickly. This is the result of long consideration and careful mapping of our future.”
According to data from VideoGameLayoofs.com, there are already 6,400 workers in the gaming industry who will be affected by mass layoffs throughout 2023. Employee reductions have occurred at giant gaming companies such as Electronic Arts, Epic Games and Microsoft.
Epic Games, which is famous for mobile games Fortnite, carried out the largest layoff in early October, namely 800 employees.
The wave of mass layoffs in the video game industry is seen as a correction to the flood of investment into video game companies after Covid. Investors are racing to inject capital into video game companies after video game consumption soared amid activity restrictions during the pandemic.
The post-pandemic decline in video game consumption has only had an impact on the operations of video game companies in the last year because the process of developing video game titles takes a very long time and is capital intensive.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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