Link: Gamasutra

Amazon has made their own game engine to sell games on their website. This is actually interesting as they are entering a field as a content creator rather than just a content seller. It’s also great for us as game designers as the game creation system is completely free, meaning they will not make any money off of the games you create, where they will make the money is from Amazon Web Servers.

Monetization for Lumberyard will come strictly through the use of Amazon Web Services’ cloud computing. If you use the engine for your game, you’re permitted to roll your own server tech, but if you’re using a third-party provider, it has to be Amazon.

That makes sense as very few companies would make nothing without expecting some form of profit.

Lumberjack, which is the name of the engine, is based off Crytek’s CryEngine. They got “full, unencumbered access to the technology” to build upon and change as needed. Of course as they move forward the differences between engines will inevitably grow.

The only disadvantage of the engine seems to be the focus on multiplayer games, not that this is a huge disadvantage, but it feels like they would