Why has Amazon failed to break into video games? Interviews with 30+ current and former employees point to one root problem: the guy in charge had never made a game before. He'd hire veteran devs... then ignore them.
New investigation with @Priyasideas: bloomberg.com/news/features/…
New investigation with @Priyasideas: bloomberg.com/news/features/…
Amazon Game Studios boss Mike Frazzini, an Amazon lifer, would tell staff that their games had to be "billion-dollar franchises." They had to all be the size of Call of Duty... yet they also had to be innovative and unlike anything anyone had played before.
Under Frazzini, Amazon's Seattle office also cultivated a "bro culture" that made women feel ostracized and unwelcome, according to four female developers who worked there (and backed up by many men). Women said the sexist culture at AGS was worse than any other game studio 
Amazon started trying to make core games in 2014. Most of those projects have been canceled, except New World, which is getting some buzz. But even that had its issues... executives refused to listen to staff who tried to explain that its portrayal of indigenous people was racist
Executives finally relented (and removed Native American imagery from the game) after the studio brought in a tribal consultant who explained why it was racist
Not long ago, one Amazon game dev went into the (mostly empty) office to grab their things and found a message on the white board about Amazon Game Studios boss Mike Frazzini: "Fraz is cancer." Surrounded by +1s.
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