According to Wccftech, Amazon has confirmed a new round of mass layoffs impacting over 16,000 people in early 2026, following a cut of 14,000+ in October 2025. The latest reductions are hitting divisions like AWS, retail, Prime Video, and HR. Concurrently, a report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier states that Christoph Hartmann, the head of Amazon Game Studios (AGS), has left the company. Hartmann, who founded 2K Games before joining Amazon in 2018, led AGS through major cuts last year, including the shutdown of New World Aeternum and the cancellation of a Lord of the Rings MMO. His departure appears to be a resignation amidst restructuring, not a direct result of this latest layoff wave, which reportedly spares AGS this time.
The End of an Era
So, Hartmann’s exit feels like the final punctuation mark on Amazon‘s grand, expensive, and largely failed experiment in traditional AAA game publishing. Here’s the thing: hiring the founder of 2K Games back in 2018 was a huge statement of intent. It screamed, “We’re serious about building a top-tier game studio from the ground up.” They spent billions. They hired thousands. And what did they have to show for it after nearly eight years? A couple of modestly successful titles and a graveyard of high-profile cancellations.
Now, the strategy has completely inverted. The focus isn’t on building the next Grand Theft Auto competitor anymore. It’s on cloud infrastructure and AI. The “re-launch” of Amazon Luna in late 2025, with its promise of AI-powered games, was the clearest signal. They’re not trying to be the next Electronic Arts or Activision. They’re trying to be the platform, the pipe. The games themselves are becoming a secondary concern, more like features to sell a cloud subscription service.
What’s Next for Amazon Gaming?
This leaves Amazon Game Studios in a weird, probably diminished state. Without its high-profile leader and with the corporate mandate clearly shifted, what’s left? They’ll likely maintain live services for existing titles like Lost Ark (which they publish) for as long as it’s profitable. But ambitious, internally developed console and PC games? I think that chapter is closed.
Basically, Amazon looked at the brutal economics of game development—the decade-long cycles, the massive risk, the cultural friction—and decided it was a bad bet. Especially when they have a money-printing cloud division (AWS) and a growing obsession with AI efficiency. Why pour resources into a hit-driven entertainment business when you can build the foundational tech everyone else uses? It’s a classic Amazon move: if you can’t dominate the market by selling the product, dominate it by selling the tools to make and deliver the product.
And look, maybe that’s the smarter play. But it’s a stark reminder of how hard it is to “buy” your way into creative industries, even with all the money and top talent in the world. The departure of Christoph Hartmann isn’t just a personnel change. It’s the white flag on a very expensive war.
