Amazon has added another installment, Crucible, to the list of games from its new game development branch.

Back in 2012, Amazon created a new gaming branch titled "Amazon Game Studios," and it has finally gotten around to releasing a big-budget game eight years later on Steam. Crucible is a free to play shooter that deviates from the typical tablet games it produces, though it does now have other major projects in the works.

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After the company purchased Twitch in 2014, Amazon continued expanding into the gaming industry. Amazon tends to make content centered around getting more people to become Amazon Prime subscribers. It is theorized that game distribution might be the company's attempt to expand the type of services it offers.

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An example of this would be Amazon adding Twitch Prime accounts to its Amazon Prime subscription services, giving members exclusive features on the streaming platform. Loup Ventures' Doug Clinton goes on to comment that the possible reasoning behind Amazon's decision for this expansion is because "When you win the younger consumer, that's a way to [permanently win] the whole household."

Even with this release, Amazon's gaming studios are already showing troubling signs of dealing with development. Last year the Amazon's gaming branch fired multiple game developers and canceled numerous unannounced titles slated for production. Crucible is also entering an oversaturated game market, competing against established games like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battleground, while also coming up against Call of Duty: Warzone's recent massive success, all possibly harming the company's gaming future.

However, even if Crucible doesn't succeed, this won't stop Amazon from creating new games. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter goes on to say, "Games is a hard business, so it makes sense that it takes a while to develop a hit and [it] makes sense that they will tweak their model and headcount as they evolve." The studio already has another MMO called New World ready to fill the void if Crucible happens to fail. As Amazon is getting's its bearing through the early stages of gaming development, it seems its ploy at the moment is to throw all its darts at the board to see what sticks. It'll be interesting to see how much longer Amazon will be willing to devote to its gaming branch to compete with the other companies leaping towards the gaming industry.

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Source: CNBC