Amazon launches free game engine Lumberyard
PC, PS4, Xbox One compatible.
Online retail giant Amazon has announced its own free game engine, Lumberyard, which is based on CryEngine.
Available immediately, the software allows for development on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Twitch integration is also supported and mobile support is incoming.
Key to the whole idea is Lumberyard's hookup to Amazon Web Services, which comes baked in to the service (thanks, Gamasutra).
AWS will be how Amazon makes money on Lumberyard. It is the only server technology natively supported by the engine - although developers could choose to design their own.
Clearly, though, the desire is for developers to pay for AWS servers to work with their online games. GameLift, another new product from Amazon, is designed to do just this - priced at $1.50 for every 1000 daily users.
It's a shrewd idea - developers are already using Amazon servers. The engine has also been bolstered by the talents of Killer Instinct studio Double Helix, which Amazon snapped up back in 2014. Code it developed for low-latency networking on the Xbox One fighter is now being employed via AWS.
Lumberyard is still in beta, but is another big step from one of the world's largest companies into the realm of gaming.
