Former 2K Games co-founder and president joins Amazon Game Studios as VP

[jazzpunk]

https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/07/former-2k-president-christoph-hartmann-joins-amazon-game-studios-as-vice-president/

Last May, Christoph Hartmann stepped down from his role
as president of Take-Two Interactive’s 2K Games — and he’s landed as
vice president of Amazon Game Studios. In his new role, he’ll be leading
Amazon’s internal game development teams in three cities, overseeing
first-party titles New World and Crucible.

Amazon has found some successes in the gaming space — most notably
with the livestreaming platform Twitch, which it acquired in 2014. This
year, it has been pushing more into esports. It hosted its second annual
Mobile Masters tournament this year, where players competed for a $100,000 prize pool in games
like World of Tanks Blitz and Critical Ops. In March, it launched GameOn,
a service geared toward helping developers integrate esports features
in their PC, console, and mobile titles so long as they’re hosted on
Amazon Web Services.

Its other efforts haven’t been as successful, like its game engine Lumberyard,
which lags behind Unity and Unreal Engine. And Game Studios, its
internal team that develops first-party games, failed to grab audiences
during alpha testing with its fantasy sports brawler Breakaway, which
got nixed in April after two years in development. There’s still hope for its massively
multiplayer online game New World and sci-fi survival adventure
Crucible, though, both of which Hartmann will be stewarding as Game Studios’ new vice president.