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Our Head of Talent, Mike Cook, recently visited the Twitch office in London for an exclusive hands-on look at the newly repositioned Amazon Luna cloud gaming service. Hosted by Jeff Gattis, General Manager of Amazon Luna, the session highlighted what seems to be Amazon’s strategic push to turn its 200M+ Prime members into Luna gamers.
Rather than competing directly with gaming giants like Xbox and PlayStation, Amazon appears focused on expanding the gaming market and reaching new audiences.
With that context in mind, here’s Mike’s firsthand experience and insights from the event:
The biggest news is the inclusion of 50+ games bundled at no extra cost with an Amazon Prime subscription. These games are instantly streamable across various devices without the need for a bulky PC or gaming console.
During the demonstration, we explored some of the party games included in Luna. A prime example of this is the ‘human-built, AI-powered, voice-driven improv courtroom game’, Courtroom Chaos: Starring Snoop Dogg. The game is controller-free, inviting players to use their voices to invent absurd scenarios and accuse one another.
Initially, we were reluctant to push the game too hard. Would the AI understand us? Or would it get confused by our mixture of accents? We needn’t have worried! Judge Snoop hilariously responded to everything we said, sharing his legal view, making funny quips and even addressing us by name.
I think this is a great party game, and it's sure to spawn many funny social-media video clips as players test the limits of Snoop’s AI.
We also dove into the GameNight collection, which emphasizes local multiplayer with minimal setup. All I had to do was pull out my mobile phone and scan the on-screen QR code, and I was in the game.
We had a few raucous rounds of Draw & Guess, which, as the name suggests, tests your drawing and guessing skills and can handle up to 16 players.
Then we tried a few rounds of Flappy Golf Party, which had a simple two-button control layout, which allowed 1~6 players to race around courses, with the aim of being the first into the hole like golf. It was only at the end of the session that I realised I had forgotten to connect to WiFi, and had been playing on my regular phone data connection, with no noticeable issues!
Amazon Luna isn’t just party games though. A quick look through the games selection and you’ll also see recent AAA titles like Hogwarts Legacy, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.
Is the selection of games as impressive as what Xbox and Playstation offer on their subscription services? Not even close.
But, instead of fighting over the existing hardcore gamer base, Amazon is creating a new segment by targeting casual players, families, and friends. By bundling Luna with Prime, Amazon is engaging a massive, untapped audience that largely doesn't subscribe to traditional gaming services.
The "free with Prime" inclusion removes the financial and psychological hurdle of subscribing to yet another service, making it incredibly easy for millions to try cloud gaming for the first time.
The curated list of games and the use of familiar devices (mobile phones) as controllers prioritizes an inclusive, pick-up-and-play experience that appeals to everyone from grandparents to grandkids, which I think is great, and something I’ll definitely be taking advantage of over the coming months.
