The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Amazon Reveals Plans to Dominate the Gaming World

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

ilrein

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
153%
Oct 1, 2012
390
597
32
Some 20 hours ago they announced the release of a cross platform game engine, competing with the likes of Unity and Unreal.

The best part? It's totally free to use. You only pay for the Elastic Cloud instances running your game, serving requests. And of course, they are following it up with a free service to manage scaling, and integration with the plethora of other tools they have already released.

It also makes perfect sense why they bought Twitch for $1 billion. They've integrated their fresh acquisition into the game engine. Developers can let Amazon handle scaling, streaming, and the cross platform engine to do it all. They can just make games.

I for one welcome our new Amazon overlord. May they simplify and decrease the cost of everything in my life. # Lumberyard

Time to see what these 10 gigs I just downloaded can do...
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

luniac

Platinum Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
158%
Dec 7, 2012
1,781
2,811
33
brooklyn
I'll stick with Unity3D for now... :)
 
Last edited:

Fenix

Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
127%
Apr 16, 2014
74
94
In your opinion, @ilrein , the announcement, what types of business opportunities does it open?

Because the answer would be quite interesting, wouldn't be?
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

ilrein

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
153%
Oct 1, 2012
390
597
32
@Fenix

Excellent question.

Amazon has a simple strategy, target software developers, build their base, and quietly destroy the competition in the progress. Amazon Web Services is valued @ 160 billion dollars, and competitors are asking themselves, where did this come from? How did Amazon all of the sudden become the dominant public cloud computing infrastructure?

They will use the same strategy that has been effective before. They will exclusively focus on developers while extending their tools to augment every aspect of the game development pipeline. For now, only programmers have an immediate opportunity. We will have to wait and see what opportunities exist from a different perspective.

Right now, the immediate benefit is allure of a royalty-free, subscription-free ultra high tier game engine and development environment. Developers like @luniac will not be persuaded to switch from their comfort zone right off the bat, but Unity and Unreal just don't have the superpowers AWS has. Watch over the next two years as AWS bulldozes through their competition with all of the usual hallmarks: silence, efficiency, and ruthlessness.

I see a twofold opportunity. Since this tool is brand new, there will be entire communities that will spring out of nowhere, associating themselves with this upcoming megagiant. The other, of course, is actually writing code and getting games to market in a fraction of the time. I'll be looking into doing both. Learn the platform while blogging about it. Build a community around development, while also becoming an authority in the subject. Since it's so new, it's there's a lot of room in the internet ecosystem to position yourself as a premium expert on Lumberyard.

Amazon Lumberyard is available today in beta for developers building PC and console games. Mobile and VR platforms coming soon.
 

luniac

Platinum Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
158%
Dec 7, 2012
1,781
2,811
33
brooklyn
I wonder if this expansion has anything to do with amazon barely making any profits...

Expanding out of retail to video games development... hmmm
 

ilrein

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
153%
Oct 1, 2012
390
597
32
That's how they look on the outside. They don't want to create resistance until it's too late. Standard tactic of war.

Calling Amazon a retail company is calling Airbnb a real estate company.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

luniac

Platinum Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
158%
Dec 7, 2012
1,781
2,811
33
brooklyn
That's how they look on the outside. They don't want to create resistance until it's too late. Standard tactic of war.

Calling Amazon a retail company is calling Airbnb a real estate company.

lol what kind of resistance
 

Travis.I

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
58%
Mar 11, 2014
33
19
Washington, US
Some 20 hours ago they announced the release of a cross platform game engine, competing with the likes of Unity and Unreal.

The best part? It's totally free to use. You only pay for the Elastic Cloud instances running your game, serving requests. And of course, they are following it up with a free service to manage scaling, and integration with the plethora of other tools they have already released.

It also makes perfect sense why they bought Twitch for $1 billion. They've integrated their fresh acquisition into the game engine. Developers can let Amazon handle scaling, streaming, and the cross platform engine to do it all. They can just make games.

I for one welcome our new Amazon overlord. May they simplify and decrease the cost of everything in my life. # Lumberyard

Time to see what these 10 gigs I just downloaded can do...

This is terrible. When a company like this is doing everything they can to take over everything.

Some of you may think "oh thank god amazon is making everything easier for us".

They are killing entrepreneurship to an extent. Trying to take over majority of markets. You can buy food on Amazon! Something like fresh produce or whatever. This is causing individuals to be to lazy to go out and buy them. Instead they are resorting to Amazon. And the companies people use to shop at are going out of business.

I understand not EVERY person is looking to Amazon for food. But personally I wouldn't mind seeing them fall as a company slightly. They don't benefit me anymore at least. Even then in the past when they "did", I could of went else where for what I they had at the time.

Some people have stated Amazon even has replaced employees with robots for some FBA centers. Some of you may be raving happy about that, but there goes more people with no work. When computers got introduced, many people got laid off of certain areas.

I tried to think this out yesterday, but it looks like I am having troubles doing so still.
 

splok

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
174%
Jul 20, 2012
673
1,172
Opportunities? Maybe in making plugins/support software or educational materials. It's interesting, but I'm not sure it changes anything in gamedev land. I mean, for a studio with even minimal resources, the current set of games engines aren't exactly expensive and can still potentially be free. Any game studio is going to pick productivity over the cost difference this would make, so if it's going to change anything, it's going to have to change them on the productivity side. I haven't tinkered with it yet, but from checking their page, the only place where they're even trying to compete feature-wise is in their backend/AWS integration. That may end up making a reasonable productivity difference, but it's yet to be seen.

So far, I can't see any reason to see this as anything more than just another game engine. Maybe Amazon can use their leverage to sweeten the pot a little (or to poison everyone else's), but it's hard to imagine that being sufficient to pull people away from Unity or Unreal. They could maybe only allow Lumberyard games on Kindle devices, but that would be pretty devastating to their game supply. If they were Apple, this would be a much bigger threat.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

ilrein

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
153%
Oct 1, 2012
390
597
32
@Travis.I

I disagree with the statement of Amazon destroying entrepreneurship. I would argue the opposite. By simplifying the process, and the time and cost to market, they are enabling independent game developers. By offering a new option, developers have a wider choice of weaponry to accomplish their goals.

The only monopoly I have a problem with is one that the government protects. One that is earned through sheer cost effectiveness and quality of products is another story. The latter can only retain their position by adhering to the principles that took them there in the first place.

@splok

Right now, it's just another game engine (that's royalty and subscription free -- a pretty big deal, since your cost to market is now zero). I'm excited to see the upcoming extensions to support mobile and VR. I believe that Amazon will simply continue to improve the product until it becomes the de facto choice for developers. That's what they did with AWS. That's why they released this product as a casual announcement, not hyping or publicizing. They have a plan. They are masters in delivery. They will just quietly execute to market dominance.
 

splok

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
174%
Jul 20, 2012
673
1,172
Right now, it's just another game engine (that's royalty and subscription free -- a pretty big deal, since your cost to market is now zero). I'm excited to see the upcoming extensions to support mobile and VR.

The basic version of Unity is free until you hit 100k/yr in revenue, and Unreal is a 5% royalty. Both already support mobile and VR as well as 2D. I'm sure Amazon can throw money at the problem until they make some progress, but all I'm saying is that "free" isn't really a compelling sales pitch considering the competition.

Imo, to make headway into the engine market, you need to make things possible (or economical) for studios that weren't before. They "might" be able to do that with GameLift, but even if they do, it would be far more impactful as a plugin for the other engines, imo.
 

ilrein

Silver Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
153%
Oct 1, 2012
390
597
32
@splok

Those are very wise points. The question then is, will Amazon keep developing until they are a stronger competitor in the space? Or will they never beat Unity/Unreal?

I wager that they will. Time will tell.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

7.62x51

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
180%
Jan 27, 2015
168
303
35
SBwSUf0jYUCZ.878x0.Z-Z96KYq.jpg

- note: 2015 numbers are as of July
- 2015 was the year Unreal and Unity went free
- 37% of games purchased on Steam are never played

The quantity of games being released now means that the new barrier to entry has become discoverability.

Also, something I never hear anyone mention, the big games of today like GTA 5, Fallout 4 and Halo 5 have their own game/map editors. This will get more young people interested in the idea of creating their own content and bring more people into the game development space.

Amazon getting in on the action is just another addition to the overall trend of more people making games.

MJ talks about the dangers of following your passion and I think the current video game market is a prime example of that.
 

Travis.I

New Contributor
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
58%
Mar 11, 2014
33
19
Washington, US
@Travis.I

I disagree with the statement of Amazon destroying entrepreneurship. I would argue the opposite. By simplifying the process, and the time and cost to market, they are enabling independent game developers. By offering a new option, developers have a wider choice of weaponry to accomplish their goals.

The only monopoly I have a problem with is one that the government protects. One that is earned through sheer cost effectiveness and quality of products is another story. The latter can only retain their position by adhering to the principles that took them there in the first place.

@splok

Right now, it's just another game engine (that's royalty and subscription free -- a pretty big deal, since your cost to market is now zero). I'm excited to see the upcoming extensions to support mobile and VR. I believe that Amazon will simply continue to improve the product until it becomes the de facto choice for developers. That's what they did with AWS. That's why they released this product as a casual announcement, not hyping or publicizing. They have a plan. They are masters in delivery. They will just quietly execute to market dominance.
I wasn't talking about the gaming service. I meant in other aspects of life. I do understand that they have definitely improved things, but they are also doing the opposite in some niches.
 

splok

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
174%
Jul 20, 2012
673
1,172
@splok

Those are very wise points. The question then is, will Amazon keep developing until they are a stronger competitor in the space? Or will they never beat Unity/Unreal?

I wager that they will. Time will tell.

They can obviously throw money at the problem until they're at least somewhat successful, and if they don't mind wasting the money, I think it's good for the industry. Until Unity came along, there wasn't really much in the way of game engines/editors that were really intended for use by "normal-ish" people. This competition caused Epic to make some serious improvements to Unreal, and I can only assume that more competition will cause the tools to advance more quickly.

Will Amazon ever "win" the competition though? It's possible, but if so, it's going to be because their product enables studios to do things they couldn't otherwise do. With enough insight and money, they might be able to do that, but I don't think they really get much benefit just from being Amazon (other than deep pockets). Also, I'm not sure that games are an important enough to them. I assume, as with their other media endeavors, that their interest in games is really just in the interests of filling their own distribution channels with proprietary content.

In the book "The Everything Store", it pretty much paints Jeff as being in awe at what Apple was able to do with iTunes, and it sounds like that's driven Amazon's strategy since then. He pulled it off with ebooks, but to do that with games, you either need to definitively win the gaming device war or the content creation war, and that market is so fragmented and cross-platform-focused that I have a hard time imagining it happening.

It could be that they just want to win the middleware war, but in that case it seems like it would make way more sense to just focus on making GameLift (Lumberyard's online/AWS feature, and the only monetised part of it) ultra-easy to use with all popular engines.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

splok

Gold Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
174%
Jul 20, 2012
673
1,172
- 2015 was the year Unreal and Unity went free

Also, something I never hear anyone mention, the big games of today like GTA 5, Fallout 4 and Halo 5 have their own game/map editors. This will get more young people interested in the idea of creating their own content and bring more people into the game development space.

Well, Unity has been free for years (if not always), though you had to pay for certain features. (and the pro version was in no way necessary to make the glut of games clogging Steam.) Epic released UDK in 2009 as free, though with a royalty once hitting a revenue cap (and most games released today would never come close to hitting it). I think the increase in game supply is a combination of the quality bar being lowered dramatically for distribution (or entirely removed), tools advancing to lower the expertise bar, and people realizing that it's actually possible to make a game themselves. At some point, games will be as easy to create and publish as ebooks are today.

Also, games have had map editors for many years, but what's true is that they've gotten far easier to use over time. And ya, the media doesn't mention much about those games (I assume because it's unpopular for the media to imply anything positive about "violent" video games). However, the media did go crazy talking about Minecraft for a while. Violence isn't violence if the resolution is low enough :p
 

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top