- Amazon.com (AMZN +1.4%) releases its first original big-budget videogame today, a bellwether that should indicate whether it can get a foothold against other longtime industry players as well as tech-giant rivals moving on the space.
- Today's release, Crucible, is a free-to-play PC game with third-person combat perspective, where players battle human and alien competitors on a distant planet.
- And it will be followed in August by New World, an open-world massively multiplayer online game set on a mysterious island. And the future holds a Lord of the Rings game.
- Amazon entered game publishing with a smaller focus in 2012; today marks a step up to compete in upper tiers of the $159B global videogame industry.
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Crucible is following a well-worn path of free-to-play games that make money by selling digital merchandise and seasonal battle passes, while New World is expected to price at $40 for a standard edition and $50 for deluxe.
- Those games will indicate whether Amazon can make revenue and talent-poaching inroads against established publishers (led by Activision Blizzard (ATVI +1.2%), Electronic Arts (EA +1.9%) and Take-Two (TTWO +2.6%)), as well as build momentum for Amazon's hopeful entry into full game-streaming as a rival to Google Stadia (GOOG +2.2%, GOOGL +2.2%).
- Meanwhile Amazon will be able to get marketing leverage from its game-focused video streamer Twitch, which is facing competition from Facebook Gaming (FB +6%).