Amazon, what used to be known strictly as an online book store, has broadened its horizons over time. Recently it's, popularly been known as an online superstore, and has even acquired the gaming streaming service Twitch back in 2014. With the company’s latest announcement, Lumberyard, Amazon has created a free 3-D gaming engine that allows developers to create AAA games and integrate online services, like Twitch, at the same time. Lumberyard is releasing alongside another platform called GameLift,
According to Amazon, Lumberyard is designed to create games that are socially oriented from the beginning. The company wants developers to focus on the social aspect from the start so that games can easily support large communities without all of the complexities that come with server lag and other issues. GameLift is being advertised by Amazon as a convenient way to include multiplayer features, and will be much easier for smaller developers to pay for.
When studios sign up to use Lumberyard, they are given the tools necessary that allow them to create “character animation, camera frameworks, animation and particle editors, audio tools, weather affects and AI elements.”
Lumberyard will also be equipped with Amazon’s cloud elements and will allow developers to choose how many servers they want, and Amazon will automatically scale everything so that players can still connect to a multiplayer game even when servers are busy and full.
With the addition of Twitch ChatPlay, developers will be able to implement real-time features that will allow Twitch viewers to interact the stream and let them vote on an in-game outcome, send gifts to their favorite streamers and they can even increase the difficulty of a game based off of a streamer’s viewer count. Twitch ChatPlay could also help expand the idea of “Twitch Plays…” based channels, such as “Twitch Plays Pokémon”, by allowing built-in support for chat commands. Another feature, Twitch JoinIn, allows viewers to jump into the streamer’s game and play alongside them.
Lumberyard is currently in beta and will be available for free, however Amazon plans on making revenue based on the number of active, daily users a game has. GameLife has a fee of $1.50 per 1,000 daily active users, along with all of the standard fees for using Amazon Web Services. Lumberyard currently allows support for PC and console games, but will support mobile and VR in the future.
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Source: Amazon, Engadget, Polygon
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