Amazon Lumberyard, the company's ground-up engine partially based on the CryEngine, is opening an office in Austin, Texas, long a haven for MMO developers. In a new post on the Amazon Web Services site, the announcement reveals that Austin is a great place for Lumberyard's continued development to make an engine to "help game developers build the community-driven games that push both engine and cloud technology".
Building games that connect hundreds of thousands, or millions, of players together used to only be possible for the largest game studios. But today, we hear all the time that developers of all sizes aspire to build games that bring fans together to play, compete, create, and socialize. This isn’t surprising, given that 85% of top PC and console games feature multiplayer in some form, and the top 10 grossing mobile games charts are frequently dominated by games that require the cloud to provide their deep multiplayer, competitive, and social experiences.
The article mentions Ultima Online and the robust MMO development that has in the past and currently does take place in Austin.
Read the full announcement on the Amazon Web Services / Lumberyard site.
