The workweek kicked off with distressing news for Amazon Games employees: The internet giant informed its staff on Monday about yet another round of job cuts. In this latest wave of layoffs, 180 positions are slated to be eliminated, as reported by Bloomberg.
“After our initial restructuring in April, it became clear that we needed to further focus our resources on areas that have the greatest potential for growth to drive our business forward,” said Christoph Hartmann, Vice President of Amazon Games, in an internal email obtained by Reuters.
The Amazon-operated Twitch channel, Crown Channel, is particularly affected—it’s set to be completely dissolved. While expressing pride in the team’s work and content, Hartmann emphasized that “following another evaluation of our business divisions, it became evident that we need to concentrate our resources and efforts on delivering great games to players now and in the future.”
In February 2023, Bloomberg had cast doubt on the popularity of the Crown Channel in an analysis, despite Amazon previously counting it among the top 10 channels on its platform.
The livestreaming platform Twitch has been owned by Amazon since 2014.
The company aims to focus its efforts on expanding the subscription-based service, Prime Gaming. “We’ve listened to our customers and understand that monthly offerings of free games are what they want most,” stated Hartmann.
Like other internet giants, Amazon has undergone significant job cuts this year. In a wave of layoffs in March 2023, Twitch employees and around 100 Amazon Games staff were let go. In November 2022, the team at Amazon’s cloud gaming service, Luna, was reportedly affected by layoffs as well.
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