Amazon Game Studios boss Mike Frazzini leaves ‘to focus on family’

The boss of Amazon Game Studios, the developer of New World and Lost Ark, among others, is leaving. Amazon said in a statement to Bloomberg that Frazzini will focus on his family. A successor for Frazzini has not yet been immediately designated.

The company says so in a statement opposite Bloomberg. Frazzini has been with the company since 2012, when Amazon founded the games division. Initially the plan was to make mobile games for its own Fire devices, but in 2014 the move was made to PC and console games. Frazzini was in charge of the department all along. When he started at the studio, he had no experience in the gaming industry. He previously worked with books at Amazon.

Frazzini could therefore count on a lot of criticism from employees. For example, employees and former employees told Bloomberg that Frazzini would have difficulty distinguishing concept images and actual gameplay and that he hardly understands the technology behind games. Under Frazzini’s leadership, several games flopped, including Overwatch-esque multiplayer shooter Crucible and a game based on television series The Grand Tour. Fortnite-like game Intensity and League of Legend-like game Nova never even made it to release.

Amazon Game Studios’ first success under Frazzini is New World, a mmo that at its peak at the end of September had over 900,000 concurrent players on Steam, this is how SteamDB shows. That number fell quickly, with only 31,722 players left on March 17. The game, which has been delayed more than once, has had some major issues since its release. For example, it was promised that players could transfer characters to another region, but this was postponed. And also the trading system was shut down twice due to a duplication bug. Then players got too much gold back due to in-game tax issues, something Amazon later reversed.

Amazon doesn’t say exactly what happened behind the scenes that explains Frazzini’s sudden departure. Bloomberg does report that his leadership was under pressure due to his lack of gaming experience, according to a company employee. Employees were dissatisfied with him because he seemed to underestimate how complex game development is.

Mike Frazzini in 2014. Photo: Getty Images, Andrew Burton