Amazon is Not a Good Place for Gamedev; Ex-dev on Behind-the-scenes
According to a former developer at Amazon Games, Crucible was doomed to fail from the start. It was influenced by, among other things, poor work organization.
- According to a developer working on Crucible, the game was doomed to failure from the beginning;
- The reason for this state of affairs was supposed to be poor work organization and incompetent management at Amazon Games;
- The company is also supposed to hinder the personal development of employees.
Crucible is a game known mainly for being one of the first works of Amazon Games. It was also a spectacular failure, with its servers shutting down just five months after the debut.
Now Stephen Dewhurst, one of the developers working on Crucible who devoted several years of his life to the game, has taken the floor and claims that it was doomed to fail from the start.
Poor work organization and incompetent management
Dewhurst shared his thoughts in an interview with NME. The developer quickly learned that Amazon is not the best place to make video games. There are several reasons for this.
The most important seems to be the issue of the management, which includes many overconfident people. According to Dewhurst, they joined the company after many successes, which led them to believe they were infallible.
At the same time, their accomplishments came from working on games that had nothing to do with Crucible.
Dewhurst stated that many common developers felt that the decisions made by management were misguided. The ideas thrown around were simply not going to fit the game they were creating.
Lack of development opportunities
Dewhurst also pointed out the absurd policies regarding employee development. The developer revealed that studio did not allow employees to improve themselves beyond their job description.
Individuals taking up a position in the company were discouraged from acquiring more knowledge. This was reportedly related to the company's recruitment methods.
Amazon's goal is to hire the best people in every field. In doing so, the company expects these individuals not to go beyond their assigned aspect of the job.
Fear of "competition"
The reluctance towards initiatives of rank-and-file employees is also linked to the fear consuming the management of Amazon Games.
The company's executives are said to be concerned that developers who engage in their own projects or learn new skills will become competitors to the studio over time.
Dewhurst pointed out the irrational fear that employees might suddenly have the idea to create a revolutionary work like Minecraft that would take Amazon Games out of business. As a result, the management fought all initiatives of the team members.
As you can see, this approach does not guarantee success, as evidenced by the failure of Crucible. In addition, the rules of the studio led some employees, such as Dewhurst, to leave the company.
