Amazon's Tipped Crytek Deal And The Big Screen Entertainment Therein
The future of movies is here – it's in video game engines. I came to this realization when I took part in the Thief in the Shadows VR experience at GDC 2015 with Epic Games. Word today is that Amazon recently struck a deal with Crytek to do something or other – license their gaming engine, perhaps – in a deal that we can't help but think has something to do with video entertainment. Movies, even. While Amazon does not give up on projects, even when they fail, tapping in to CryEngine's potential more than likely means Amazon is about to go big with a big-screen production (on their own small screens, of course).
While the Amazon Fire TV was positioned as a Gaming machine when it was first plugged in early 2014, it took off as more of an entertainment device. People didn't buy it to play games from Amazon's app store so much as they did because they wanted Amazon's TV services.
Not that Amazon isn't a company to try things more than once.
"I have made billions of dollars of failures at Amazon dot com," said Jeff Bezos in December of 2014. With regard to a second Fire Phone, Bezos suggested that "it's going to take several iterations."
The same could be true of Amazon's game-pushing aspirations.
It could be as simple as Amazon taking a big swing at AAA game development for productions that'll work only on their own devices. Or sold exclusively through Amazon.com, of course.
According to Kotaku this afternoon, this financial trouble at Crytek back in July likely resulted in Amazon stepping in with boatloads of cash – tens of millions, its rumored.
Amazon is more like Netflix than it is like NVIDIA. They're more likely to strike a deal now with a film studio to use Crytek's technology to create special effects in an Amazon-exclusive film production than they are to create their own gaming engine.
Crytek also has dealings in Virtual Reality. CryEngine lends itself to the VR universe very naturally – as we saw most recently with the demo "Back to Dinosaur Island" shown here:
If Amazon did indeed strike some sort of licensing deal with Amazon, it won't be something that'll be brushed under the carpet.
Just think of the fervor caused by the Android release of Crysis 3 with NVIDIA. Now imagine an Amazon-made graphic effects-heavy episodic film production made by Amazon without mentioning Crytek. It's not going to happen like that.
Instead, prepare yourself for a big announcement from Amazon and Crytek – something that'll be good news for both companies, something that'll propel Crytek into the limelight of entertainment production.
Stay tuned to our gaming hub for more news and insight into the quickly converging worlds of big-screen movie entertainment and gaming technology.