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Amazon’s New World Preview Is Doing Better On Twitch Than Crucible
Amazon’s fledgling MMO New World, which has entered the closed beta testing phase, is currently doing much better on Twitch than the previous project, multiplayer shooter Crucible. The first of Amazon’s major attempts to reach the prosperous market of online entertainment did not meet any expectations.
Crucible was meant to become another big player on the market of team-based online shooters, but in reality, the game turned out to be a huge failure for Amazon. A disappointing lack of any prominent features, along with completely unoriginal design decisions, was to blame for Crucible’s poor reception, which eventually led to bringing the game back to the drawing board. The title hasn’t spent even two months in the wild before it got averted back to a closed beta testing phase. Unlike Crucible, however, New World is doing much better for Amazon.
New World, Amazon’s promising MMO, is starting to get some recognition in the community, according to Kotaku’s recent research. On August 25th, the debuting day after the embargo on streaming gameplay was lifted, the title attracted more than 300,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch, which was already an achievement considering that Crucible managed to peak at mere 100,000 viewers. While not keeping the same big numbers afterward, New World nonetheless remains relatively popular among Twitch users. All of this became possible due to the fact that Amazon invited popular streamers to obliquely join the promotional campaign of the game by offering them free keys for giveaways. Some of the bigger names including Shroud are also involved in promoting New World, which is an inspiring sign for Amazon’s latest gaming initiative. Additionally, offering a new ambitious MMO on a relatively deserted market (apart from such obvious pillars as, for instance, World of Warcraft) is highly appealing to genre enthusiasts unlike throwing in another hero shooter in the highly saturated niche dominated by Overwatch and dozens of other well-established titles.
Visually, New World strongly reminds of the colonialism era, mainly because character design seemingly draws inspiration from Spanish conquistadors. The idea of discovering new flourishing lands is hidden in plain sight – in the very name of the project. An attractive, rarely utilized setting might be one of the reasons why New World has been getting quite an attention lately besides some indirect marketing efforts by Amazon. The events of the game take place in a fictional world where the Eternal Isle of Aeternum hides the mysterious force responsible for corrupting the land’s inhabitants and turning them into brutal savages. Players can survive alone against the multiple dangers of Aeternum or band together in an effort to overcome the challenges of the hostile environment and rival groups of conquerors.
Judging by the painful flop of Crucible and the cautious success of New World, Amazon is probably learning through trial and error looking for a niche in the highly competitive gaming industry. The company is making some obvious freshman mistakes, although there’s some undeniable potential in what it’s doing. New World might actually become the first victory for Amazon paving the way for future projects that will likely benefit from the company’s early attempts to gain momentum with its pioneering titles. Even Crucible has a chance for redemption if approached with Amazon’s new knowledge of how the industry operates.
New World releases in Spring 2021 on the PC.
