Amazon has been lurking around games for a while now. Now we know some of what they’ve been doing. The company has announced the release of Lumberyard, a free cross-platform engine with embedded Twitch functionality that will help people make games.
Lumberyard can also be used alongside Amazon GameLift, a new service that helps with the back end of multiplayer networking. GameLift has a charge for the number of active users, and any who choose to use it will have to pay Amazon’s standard fees for data transfers and other web services.
“Many of the world’s most popular games are powered by Amazon Web Service’s technology infrastructure platform,” said Mike Frazzini, Vice President of Amazon Games in an official release. “When we’ve talked to game developers, they’ve asked for a game engine with the power and capability of leading commercial engines, but that’s significantly less expensive, and deeply integrated with AWS for the back-end and Twitch for the gamer community. We’re excited to deliver that for our game developers today with the launch of Amazon Lumberyard and Amazon GameLift.”
Developers have already started to pour on the praise for GameLift.
“Developing and maintaining a back-end infrastructure for multiplayer games requires a lot of time, resources, and expertise that are beyond the reach of many developers,” said Chris Jones, Chief Technology Officer, Obsidian Entertainment in an official statement. “Amazon GameLift removes much of that burden from the developer, allowing them to focus their energy on bringing their great game ideas to life.”
The beta version of Lumberyard is available now and GameLift can be accessed from within the engine.
