Amazon is making 'Breakaway' and other video games to show off Twitch and the cloud

Amazon.com’s first big-budget video game is like street basketball, except played in a mythological world where athletes are armed.

Wait, Amazon makes video games? Indeed, the leader in online shopping branched into video game development a few years ago. With the unveiling last month of multiplayer online battle sport “Breakaway,” Amazon for the first time showed how its gaming acquisitions and initiatives tie together.

The PC game integrates into Twitch, the live video streaming app Amazon bought for nearly $1 billion, unlike any game from anyone ever before. “Breakaway” also showcases Lumberyard — a free software package that Amazon designed for game developers to build on because it connects to Amazon Web Services, a fee-based cloud storage system.

Mike Frazzini, Amazon Games vice president, and Patrick Gilmore, head of the company’s Irvine development studio, said “Breakaway” will become available for free indefinitely for people to test as Amazon squashes bugs. In a cramped corner at Twitch’s bustling fan convention in San Diego, they went deeper into how “Breakaway” came to be and what to expect from Amazon Games. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Read more at the full article here: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-amazon-games-20161014-snap-htmlstory.html

shah!