Amazon is trying to woo indie game developers, and it might just work

By Hugh Langley

Unexpectedly, Amazon has announced a free and open-source 3D engine for developers. It’s called Lumberyard, it’s a modified version of Crytek’s CryEngine – which should tell you that this is meant for AAA games – and can be used to develop for PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Oh yeah, and the beta version is available right now.

What sets Lumberyard apart is that it’s a) also royalty-free and b) comes with the option to integrate Amazon’s cloud services, which is how the company is going to make its money.

Developers will have to pay to take advantages of the Amazon Web Services, which will include Twitch (which Amazon bought last year), letting gamers start streaming in a couple of button presses.

Amazon GameLift, meanwhile, lets devs easily scale multiplayer games up to support millions of players without paying out for a load of engineering work. There are others, but the point is that Amazon is offering the types of features serious developers are going to want.

While much of it sounds great, it’s the indie developers who could benefit most from Lumberyard, which offers the opportunity to try out ideas on a high-end platform that doesn’t require a subscription fee.

Although it’s …read more

Source:: techradar.com – Gaming