Amazon has been slowly testing the waters of the video game industry over the past few years, and today has taken a further step by announcing its own game engine, called Lumberyard. It will be free to use, and feature some key integrations from Amazon’s properties.
Lumberyard is said to be a AAA caliber engine, allowing users to create 3D cross-platform games. Among the interesting integrations, Lumberyard features a real-time gameplay editor, allowing developers to change the code of their game on the fly, seeing the results in real-time.
The engine will use C++, and will allow full access to its code. This will allow developers to tweak the engine to fit whatever needs they may have.
Since Amazon owns Twitch, it would be a mistake to not do something with Lumberyard and the popular streaming site. Lumberyard will feature integration on several levels. This ranges from something as simple as a streamer being able to more easily invite friends to games while streaming, to allowing stream viewers to actually control the game via the chat.
Alongside the announcement of Lumberyard, Amazon also announced GameLift. This service will utilize the Amazon Web Services platform for developers to host multiplayer games. The GameLift service is said to be incredibly easy to scale multiplayer games, allowing for more people to play if needed. The service is also integrated into Lumberyard.
Lumberyard is free to download and to mess around with all you want. Amazon will be making money when developers want to utilize the other Amazon Web Services, such as GameLift. This means there is no subscription fee, seat fee or requirement to share profits.
The engine is available right now, in beta form.
So what do you think? Are you excited to see the new games that will be developed with Lumberyard? What do you think is Amazon’s next big gaming move? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
