Lost Ark and Co.: Amazon Games chief resigns

This is an article from our content partner "PC Games Hardware". Here you can find the original article by Rhonda Bachmann.

Amazon Games has apparently lost its studio head. Bloomberg reports that Mike Frazzini, who has headed the studio since 2009, has reportedly resigned. Frazzini reportedly told his staff last Friday that he wanted to vacate his post to "focus on his family." Before becoming the studio head of Amazon Games, Mike Frazzini worked in the book division of the retail giant for five years.

Studio head leaves Amazon Games

"Mike has been with Amazon Games since its inception and has helped build the games business from the ground up with his leadership and tenacity," Amazon spokesman Ryan Jones said in a statement to Bloomberg. "Our recent successes with New World and Lost Ark are the result of the long-term, customer-centric vision for games that he helped build. We are very grateful for all of his contributions and wish Mike the very best."

During his time as studio head, however, Frazzini was not without criticism. Last year, for example, there were reports that he had no experience with games and often rejected the advice of developers he hired. The report also claimed Frazzini would understaff projects and let developers chase the latest trends. However, these projects would ultimately lead to failures for the studio.

Examples of these failures would include the Fortnite-inspired Intensity. With Nova, Amazon Game Studios wanted to emulate Riot's League of Legends. However, the project never made it out of development. In 2020, the developer released the free-to-play shooter Crucible. After a short time, however, the full version was downgraded to a closed beta. Amazon first had success with the MMO New World as well as the action game Lost Ark.

Source: GamesIndustry.biz, The Verge