Amazon Lumberyard logo courtesy of Amazon.com
Amazon opened a corporate office in Austin in the Domain at 11501 Alterra Parkway about a year ago, according to a report from KXAN.
In a blog post, Amazon called Austin “one of the long-standing centers of gravity for great game development talent, and innovation in community-driven games.”
“We believe Austin is a perfect location for us to continue our quest to help game developers build the community-driven games that push both engine and cloud technology,” according to the blog post. “From the early days of Ultima Online, to some of today’s most beloved MMOs, Austin game teams have helped lead the industry in large-scale, multiplayer experiences.”
Richard Garriott de Cayeux created Ultima Online in 1997 as part of Origin Games, which was acquired by NCsoft. He currently runs an Austin-based gaming company called Portalarium.
Lumberyard and AWS seek to offer game developers a scalable infrastructure to build their operations without worrying about their backend technologies.
“Not only is Austin a great location for experts who have passion and deep experience building some of our favorite MMOs, multiplayer, and community-driven games, it’s also home to one of our new Twitch teams who just set up shop there in July,” according to Amazon. “The Twitch team in Austin is focused on helping developers use Twitch in creative ways to grow community and make money, and we’re excited to work closely together (and have made sure that our desks are well within Nerf distance).”
Amazon currently lists 205 jobs available at its Austin office.
VentureBeat reports the Amazon Lumberyard expansion comes a few weeks after San Francisco-based “MaxPlay, the maker of a competing game engine, confirmed that it had laid off almost all of its employees at its San Francisco and Austin locations.”
Disclosure: Silicon Hills News is an affiliate partner with Amazon.
Leave a Reply