With Amazon Games back in the news and upping its profile as a publisher thanks to Throne & Liberty and Blue Protocol, studio execs are making the rounds in interviews, the latest being a GamesBeat interview with Amazon Games’ head of marketing, Sarah Anderson. While most of it is promotional and fluffy, there are a few comments notable for MMO players in particular.
On New World: “We were able to get [New World] back to the Steam top 10. We’re showing a commitment to our players. We’ll continue to invest. We see it as a long-term franchise. We have big plans for that one. […] The community is seeing that we’re going to stick with this.”
On Lost Ark: “It took us about a year to get that work done. We’re continuing to support that as well, investing in that as a long-term franchise.”
On publishing strategy: “Gaming is a long game. It’s a long-term investment. It takes years to get there. That’s why part of our strategy has been to publish and work with some of these third-party development teams, because those games, in some cases, there’s an amazing game that the western audiences would love to play. We can bring that to them with our marketing power, and it helps us establish a business and start getting those pipelines and infrastructure going while we’re working on developing these amazing first-party experiences.”
On localizing Blue Protocol: “Blue Protocol is an interesting one, because it’s being developed in Japan, but it’s anime, which is so hot right now. I don’t even think there’s that much we need to change with it. We have to look at things like the monetization schemes. We are localizing it and working with Bandai Namco to do that. But it’s super exciting.”
On longterm MMOs and sunsets: “We want all these games to be 10-year franchises. You have to feel pretty confident. That also means you have to be willing to kill things. That’s hard to do, but I think all the best game companies do it at some point. You have to make some hard decisions.”
On Amazon’s canceled Lord of the Rings MMO with Leyou: “There were conversations that definitely stopped at one point. I will say, as a marketer, I would love to work with that IP. I’ll just leave it at that. I would love to see that.”
