Amazon Game Studios Head Mike Frazzini Is Leaving After Nearly 18 Years With The Company

Amazon Game Studios head Mike Frazzini has stepped down from his position and will be leaving after almost 18 years with the company. According to Bloomberg, Frazzini made the announcement internally last Friday, saying that he was taking time off to focus on his family.

“It’s always been in my head to take time off in the middle of my career to spend time with family (before kids are off to college), and to pursue some personal interests while my knees and back are still (relatively) healthy,” Frazzini wrote in his LinkedIn profile. “I have no idea where things will lead from here (maybe even back to Amazon someday) - but I’m excited for the adventure.”

“And while there’s never really a perfect time to step away from a great role, now is a good time,” he added.

“Mike was there at the beginning of Amazon Games, and his leadership and perseverance helped build the games business from the ground up,” said Amazon spokesperson Ryan Jones. “Our recent successes with New World and Lost Ark are the result of the long-term, customer-focused vision for games he helped establish. We are very grateful for all his contributions, and wish Mike the very best.”

There’s speculation, however, that his departure might have something to do with the company’s rocky MMO launches over the past few years.

Frazzini became head of Amazon’s games division in 2009 straight from working in the physical books division of the company. He helped found Amazon Game Studios but was criticized for his unconventional approach to game development which allegedly cost the company a lot of money with nothing to show except two canceled games (Breakaway and Crucible) and a broken in-house engine (Lumberyard).

New World looked to be the big break that the studio was looking for. After being pulled back to beta testing and numerous delays, the survival MMORPG launched with nearly a million players knocking on its doors. The game’s success turned out to be short-lived as concurrent player numbers plummeted to just around 27,700 in just a few months due to seemingly unfixable exploits, design issues, and major bugs.

Amazon Games also recently released Lost Ark in the west, a fantasy MMORPG developed by South Korean video game developer Smilegate. The game is faring a bit better than New World with around 400,000 concurrent players as of this writing, down from a peak of just over 1.3 million players on launch day, according to data from Steam Charts.

We’re still waiting on word on who will be replacing Mike Frazzini as the head of Amazon Game Studios.