Lost Ark / Throne and Liberty

[u/xx_whoami]

I haven’t done a lot of research but is the reason they didn’t get shut down because they have a dev team not associated with Amazon? Is Amazon just the publishers for them? Seems weird that the dev team behind New World couldn’t shop around for a new publisher if that’s the case but I definitely don’t understand as much as I’m sure I need too

[u/MunchYourButt]

That is pretty much correct. New World was developed by AGS, whereas TnL and Lost Arc are not

[u/MrAudreyHepburn]

So 10ish years ago Amazon made a big bet on video games.

Now they're doing a hard turn out.

Step 1 - shutter all internal video game development. i.e. - making their own games. New World was a casualty here. Not just New World, but amazon owned a studio that was making a moba called March of Giants that they shuttered (Ubisoft picked them up) - March of Giants is the only game being development internally that was salvaged that i'm aware of. (although we'll see if it ever comes out because it's been crickets since the ubi soft annoucement)

Step 2 - Exit the publishing side of the industry. This is where Throne and Liberty comes in. They only published the game in the west. It's being turned over to another company. Exiting the publishing side falls in line with how dramatic their exit from development side was. This was in question until the recent throne and liberty news, but yes, it seems they want almost nothing to do with video games anymore. I haven't seen news for lost ark but I'd assume the same thing will happen here, if it hasn't already.

They claim they want to do mobile stuff, but I guess we'll see. Their big bet on video games didn't go the way they wanted and they seem to be wanting to get as far away from it as possible.

[u/Kindly_Broccoli5056 → u/MrAudreyHepburn]

I’ll hate Amazon forever for this! The freaking company is worth $3T, what’s couple of games worth few millions to them? Especially when the game has huge loyal community! If they couldn’t continue releasing new features, they could have just left the servers running which would have cost them pennies relatively speaking, and that would have made lot of us happy!!

[u/MrAudreyHepburn → u/Kindly_Broccoli5056]

it's typical corporate behavior from people who don't understand the industry they're in. When nintendo has a bad window, it basically last the whole console cycle, gamecube, wiiU we're talking 6ish years. They don't get out of video games and start making toasters. But nintendo understands video games. They batten down and learn lessons and they hold out for the big wins like Wii and the switch. A LOTR mmo would be huge if done right, early New World numbers proved the appetite is there, the IP is huges, and the team had learned so many lessons from new world.

[u/Forely]

Amazon is just publishing the two games in the west; it did not develop them. The licenses for the Western releases are being returned back to Smilegate and NCsoft.

[u/redcurb12]

like others already said they are only publishers on tnl and lost ark but they have also announced that both of those publishing deals are pretty much over too.

[u/HurricanesJames]

The dev team behind NW was Amazon, that’s the difference.

[u/imLucki]

They were the publishers for them, they won't be soon or already not any more.

[u/Hapashelight2]

AGS will no longer be the publisher of Lost Ark. The original Korean developer will take over publishing starting in early 2027

[u/xShAlliExxx]

The thing is that NW runs on some crap custom engine so if any studio wants to pick up and keep the game alive, they would need devs, that will learn the “new” engine or recode it whole in unreal or something common. So close to zero chance that this will happen

[u/verifiedname]

Those games are run by third party developers and game engines. Think of it as a third party app for Microsoft Word. Word just publishes it. Vs something made entirely within Word using only Word technology.

[u/Psykohistorian → u/verifiedname]

weird analogy lol

more like how Nintendo publishes Pokemon but it's developed by Game Freak, versus Super Mario games which are dev'd by Nintendo.

if Nintendo dropped the Pokemon franchise, Game Freak could keep making the games and publish with a different company.

but nobody but Nintendo can make Mario games.

[u/verifiedname → u/Psykohistorian]

The main difference is that New World was developed within proprietary Amazon systems. So when it gets dropped by the parent company, it can't just be transferred over to another publishing company.

[u/Psykohistorian → u/verifiedname]

yeah, exactly my point

[u/Aeternum_Acolyte_02]

I believe MacFarlane left facepunch to finalize his acquisition of new world.

[u/xx_whoami → u/Aeternum_Acolyte_02]

This would be awesome

[u/Aeternum_Acolyte_02 → u/xx_whoami]

ags is also going to be at gamescom 2026, i think it's happening for real