I wonder if the game and concept were totally trash, or did this fail because of the development staff. Almost any concept *can* be made into a respectable game. So, did this fail due to talent, resources (time and money) or scope? I'd love to see what Amazon thought the problem was.
"I wonder if the game and concept were totally trash"
Bingo.
Amazon didn't outright reject the concept, after all, they agreed to publish it. I would like to know what changed their mind.
If it was a staff over-selling their ability to deliver something, that might spill over to other projects. Even if it was the guy that green-lit this one, that's a sign that the person with control of the money may not be able to distinguish 'good' from 'bad' when it comes to games.
Amazon didnt have experienced devs to approve game design ideas.
<snip>.
Yet, someone did actually approve this game. I just hope the same decision makers aren't/weren't responsible for the same decision for New World. I don't know that Breakaway's closure inspires many to trust in the Amazon Development management team. Developers rarely approve the spending of corporate money.
If the person who gave Breakaway a go is the same to give New World its go signal, that may be a problem. If it's the same person, as you suggested that whoever approved these projects doesn't really have a clue. To me, it throws doubt at all ADS projects until they have proven that they don't fund games willy-nilly without some understanding of the market.
Something in the management process went very wrong when they agreed to fund Breakaway, I think we can agree on that. Whether they didn't understand what they were paying for; or they didn't recognize the product was likely to be inferior to competitive products; or they overestimated the ability of the developers to create something from a messy concept; it doesn't really matter. Amazon needs to shore up that part of their process if they want to be a serious developer.
I doubt even Amazon has enough money to hemorrhage cash at every game idea that comes along. I fully believe that they intend to keep their money.
Keep in mind that Breakaway was Amazon's first Online PC game - so this was approved before Amazon had a full blown studio of veteran game devs like they have today.
So they just didn't know - they simply believed the devs behind Breakaway - as they didn't use a 3rd party service like EEDAR to test it independantly (and professionally) for market viability.
They learned.
This is why video game companies spend millions with EEDAR - as they are still the best in the business at predicting how a product will do in real world before it's finished - but it costs $$$$
Look at EEDAR's customer list (which is showing less than 1% of customers as most companies don't want to be listed here)
Would the first MMO have ever been created if the company had gone to EEDAR first? That's the problem with using expert opinion for anything, it is framed in the box of what we know.
But not a bad idea if you are bringing out something which fits easily into the box.
Amazon is new at game dev stuff, so it's not surprising their experiments with the first titles the studio works on don't work out so well, they still have other titles, but mostly trying to cash in on the eSports / Streamer mainstream thing is going to be a challenge to anyone.
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Would the first MMO have ever been created if the company had gone to EEDAR first? That's the problem with using expert opinion for anything, it is framed in the box of what we know.
But not a bad idea if you are bringing out something which fits easily into the box.
My thoughts exactly.