Amazon is hiring top talent to develop its first PC game

[Shawn Knight]

Amazon Game Studios, the e-commerce giant’s gaming division, is currently looking to build a development team to work on an ambitious new PC game project using what it describes as the latest technology.

In a sponsored post on Gamasutra, Amazon highlighted the fact that its current roster is loaded with top talent that have worked on hits like BioShock, Portal, World of Warcraft, Half Life 2, Dota 2, Left 4 Dead, Halo, Infamous, Shadows of Mordor and The Last of Us.

Earlier this year, it was rumored that Amazon had struck a deal with German-based Crytek. The struggling developer is said to have licensed its in-house game-building toolset, CryEngine 3, to Amazon in a deal valued at up to $70 million.

In April 2014, Amazon Game Studios hired two high-profile game designers, Kim Swift and Clint Hocking. Swift is perhaps best known for her work on Portal while Hocking has worked on games at LucasArts, Ubisoft and Valve. Given the Crytek rumor, Hocking’s experience with Far Cry 2 could prove invaluable to Amazon.

Current job listings indicate Amazon is looking to fill a number of positions – 26 total – including senior game development engineer, tools engineer, senior gameplay engineer, lead visual effects artist, platform engineer and senior graphics engineer, just to name a few.

The complete list of job openings can be found on Gamasutra’s job board.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/60916-amazon-hiring-top-talent-develop-first-pc-game.html

 

[Burty117]

"PC game project"

This makes me happy, I just hope it doesn't end in:

"Crappy Console Port"

 

[OortCloud]

Just my opinion but it seems to me that in the early days of previous console generations the PC as a games platform has really died back, then recovered as the consoles aged, but this gen of consoles are so uninspiring and underpowered (they are a mid-range gaming PCs at best barely capable of 1080p) that the PC is going from strength to strength. It wasn't until Bloodborne came out that anything for my PS4 felt in any way 'next gen', and the XBox-1 is no better. Imagine how poor these consoles will seem in 6 more years when their 'gen' is up! I wonder if all the overheating issues etc of the previous iteration caused them to go too conservative? But, before you flame me - like I said, its just my impression!

 

[davislane1]

Just my opinion but it seems to me that in the early days of previous console generations the PC as a games platform has really died back, then recovered as the consoles aged, but this gen of consoles are so uninspiring and underpowered (they are a mid-range gaming PCs at best barely capable of 1080p) that the PC is going from strength to strength. It wasn't until Bloodborne came out that anything for my PS4 felt in any way 'next gen', and the XBox-1 is no better. Imagine how poor these consoles will seem in 6 more years when their 'gen' is up! I wonder if all the overheating issues etc of the previous iteration caused them to go too conservative? But, before you flame me - like I said, its just my impression!

You aren't in a small minority when it comes to the underwhelming first year for "next-gen." As I have said since 2014, this generation will be made or broken over the next year as developers succeed or fail in bringing new games to the market that feel contemporary. Even though I was impressed with the PS4's capabilities with Witcher 3 and Bloodborne, I've yet to play anything on the system that didn't hint of some type of physical bottleneck.

That said, they were able to squeeze a lot of performance out of the previous gen in spite of seemingly crippled internals. Maybe they can pull another rabbit from the hat.