Less than a decade into his tenure as the founder and head of Amazon Game Studios, Mike Frazzinin just announced that he’s leaving the company for family reasons.
According to Bloomberg, the Amazon executive told long-time employees that he’ll be stepping down, which was, in turn, received with congratulations and gratitude. Several employees from Amazon’s ranks cite Frazzini’s leadership as the studio’s leader as a reason for Amazon Game Studio’s success with New World and Lost Ark, the former of which is Amazon’s first successful release and is often described as a relatively fresh take on a long-dormant genre.
Of course, Frazzini cracked his fair share of eggs to get Amazon Game Studios to where it is right now.
Frazzini might receive a lot of praise these days, but he and the studio’s struggles were the laughing stock for years. Many even blamed his management style as the reason for the problems that Amazon Game Studios faced over the years. Case in point, Amazon Game Studios’ first console release, The Grand Tour Game, came out in 2019 only for the studio to pull the game from storefronts. Another infamous example is Crucible, a bid-budget shooter that Amazon Game Studios ultimately canceled and shut down for good in late 2020.
With the two aforementioned failed projects and at least two more in Intensity and Nova under Frazzini’s belt, his legacy as a founder isn’t squeaky clean. But, for what it’s worth, his success in recent years means that he is at least going out while he’s on top. After releasing New World in 2021, Amazon Game Studios followed it up with the successful launch of Lost Ark earlier this year, bringing the award-winning MMO from South Korea to the United States in 2019.
In other news, Amazon is reportedly working together with Sony to bring Kratos and the God of War franchise from video game consoles to its popular streaming platform. The news comes a few months after the multinational tech giant was reported to be securing a deal to work on a live-action adaptation of Mass Effect.
