Amazon Tried to Compete With Steam — and Ended Up Losing Interest Even in Its Own Games

The ambitions of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to conquer the PC gaming market have largely gone nowhere. As PC Gamer’s Tyler Wilde writes, after a decade of trying, the tech giants still haven’t grasped that making games requires passion, not just platforms — and now they’re facing the consequences of their cold, corporate approach.

Amazon, for instance, never really intended to become a game studio. When it launched New World and the Luna cloud service, its goal was to compete with Steam — but instead, it lost interest even in its own successes. The MMO New World, which debuted in 2021 with a record-breaking 913,000 concurrent players, is now ending active support. Not because it failed, but because, as Wilde puts it, “Amazon never truly wanted to be an MMO developer.” As previously reported, the servers will remain online until mid-2026, but no further updates are planned.

Google gave up even earlier, shutting down its Stadia studios without releasing a single game. Microsoft, meanwhile, continues to chase Steam’s market share with Game Pass, “Xbox for PC,” and a spree of studio acquisitions. Yet even its strategy is being questioned, as layoffs and long-standing “market domination” ambitions have begun to erode trust in the company.

While tech giants battle for control of platforms, the PC gaming scene continues to thrive on its own — ironically proving that New World and similar projects could have flourished if their owners had truly cared about what they were making.

For a more optimistic MMO story, check out our piece on the fan who recreated Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings Online.