After a series of beta periods and delays, Amazon Games' New World MMO officially launched on September 28. Early looks at the game were generally positive, and now that the full version of New World is available, it's enjoying steadily growing success in the immediate post-launch period. Such a reception would be considered a win for any games developer, but the early New World player count could turn into a watershed moment for Amazon Games.
Despite Amazon's success in the tech, retail, and entertainment industries, the company has had a notoriously tough time breaking into AAA game development. In nearly a decade of existence, Amazon Games has produced a handful of mobile game releases, as well as a video game adaption of the Amazon Prime show The Grand Tour. The studio is perhaps best known via its sour reputation for cancelling projects. The most grand failure to date was the shuttering of Crucible, a third-person hero shooter which was so unpopular it returned to beta before being shut down for good.
The so-far welcome reception of New World has the potential to be a turning point for the troubled games division at Amazon. According to SteamDB, New World's peak concurrent player count has risen every day since its release, as of the time of writing. Its launch day peak was just over 700,000 players, and the all-time peak is now near 900,000.
New World Still Needs To Secure Long-Term Players
New World's launch is a good start for the Amazon Games MMO, but the genre survives on longevity. Because of their design, MMOs exist in a constant state of updating. New World may have finally launched, but its development is far from over, and with big names like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, and The Elder Scrolls Online vying for MMO players' time, New World is likely to face post-launch challenges.
Only time will tell how much of a success New World actually is, but the launch is promising for Amazon Games. An apparently successful AAA release is an important milestone for the studio as a whole and is likely the biggest success for Amazon Games thus far. After years of middling returns and canceled games from, New World's player count puts it off to an extremely strong start, but game development is an ongoing process, and Amazon still has a ways to go.