Amazon readies a bigger play in video game development

Mike Snider | USA TODAY

Amazon is poised to move into video games in a big way.

The online retailing giant already makes games playable on your TV through its Fire TV Internet set-top box.

Now, Amazon Game Studios is hiring a slew of designers for "a new PC game project using the latest technology,"

said Amazon senior designer Kim Swift in a post on LinkedIn. "Our team in Seattle has worked on a lot of great titles including Portal, Left for Dead, Half Life 2, Dota 2, World of Warcraft, Halo, Infamous, Shadows of Mordor, and many others. We want people that are driven to make the best games in the industry. We're looking to take interesting risks, and invent!"

Previously at Valve, where she worked on Portal, Swift moved to Airtight Games before landing at Amazon last year.

She posted the "Amazon Game Studios is Hiring" note on May 26, but it got more attention after Gamasutra posted the news in an Amazon-sponsored note June 5 about an "ambitious new PC game project."

Amazon began making a $40 game controller available with the April 2014 launch of the Amazon Fire TV set-top box to play with games such as Minecraft on TVs. Amazon's game library has grown to 700-plus and now users can access the the GameFly video game rental streaming service ($6.99-up per month).

But native PC-quality games for the Amazon Fire -- and perhaps PCs, too -- would represent a new creative commitment to gaming.

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