UPDATED 18:55 EDT / FEBRUARY 12 2016

NEWS

Amazon’s Lumberyard game engine has “direct plumbing to AWS”

Amazon made the surprise announcement earlier this week that it would be releasing its own free game engine called Lumberyard, and in a recent interview with GamesBeat, Lumberyard head Eric Schenk explained how and why Amazon created the engine, as well as how it ties into the company’s other products, including Amazon Web Services.

“Lumberyard started when we were looking around at what our customers were asking for as far as using our services at AWS with games,” Schenk explained. “Amazon is a customer-focused sort of company. We were getting a lot of feedback on how to make our services easier to use in the context of game development.”

“We came to the conclusion that we needed to be there at the start of developing a game to be able to get things to the point we wanted as far as making things as easy as possible. That led us to the idea that we were going to need a game engine. That’s where the project started.”

According to Schenk, Lumberyard has been in the works for several years, and he noted that it has already been in use internally by Amazon Game Studios, saying “They’re our first customers.”

“From an AWS perspective, we’re neutral”

One of the primary benefits Amazon touts for its new game engine is its built-in integration with AWS, which is an important service for many game developers, especially those who are creating games with multiplayer.

“Lumberyard, because it’s a cloud-connected game engine, has direct plumbing to AWS,” Schenk said. “We launched it as an AWS service. You can really only use it by using AWS. When we looked at it, it’s designed for game developers, but the technology itself is mainly AWS. [That’s why] it made sense to launch it as a branded AWS service.”

While Amazon’s new game engine is built with AWS in mind, Schenk said that Lumberyard will not get any special treatment, nor will Amazon restrict the way other game engines can access its services.

“From an AWS perspective, we’re neutral,” he said. “If someone makes a game with whatever technology, be it commercially licensed or something they wrote themselves, they’re welcome to use AWS. We’d never prevent that sort of thing.”

“This is just day one”

Lumberyard’s main competitors in the game engine space are Unreal Engine 4 and Unity, and despite all it has to offer, Lumberyard has one big disadvantage compared to the more established engines: It doesn’t have a dedicated community churning out resources on how to use it.

However, Schenk said that Amazon will not leave developers to fend for themselves when it comes to learning how to use Lumberyard, and the company will be releasing a series of video tutorials in the coming months.

Schenk concluded the interview by saying that he believes Lumberyard will be an important asset for Amazon.

“Games are becoming the leading form of entertainment. Over a long arc of time, everyone will be a gamer of one kind or another. When we think about what our customers want, games are right there. We think it’s important to work with our customers and give them what they’re interested in. From that point of view, yeah, we absolutely believe it’s strategic.’

“This is just day one. We’re just getting started. It’s the start of a long run and we’re looking forward to talking with game developers and other potential users of our technology, getting in front of our customers and hearing what they want. We’ll be steering where we’re going as a result of what we hear from our customers about what they need.”

You can read the full interview with Eric Schenk at GamesBeat.

Image courtesy of Amazon

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