Amazon Ends ‘Crucible’ Game Development; Street Stays Bullish

Amazon announced on Friday that it will discontinue the development of its Crucible game as the e-commerce giant has been trying to make a push into the video games industry.

Amazon (AMZN) said that as a result of the decision to end Crucible the team working on the development will be transitioned to focus on another original game called “New World” and other upcoming projects from Amazon Games. The move comes after the online retailer in July had announced that it is putting the Crucible game back to closed beta following a critical reception from players.

Crucible is a free-to-play multiplayer third-person shooter, and is Amazon’s first major original title published by their gaming division, which had previously focused on tablet games.

“We very much appreciate the way that our fans have rallied around our efforts, and we’ve loved seeing your responses to the changes we’ve made over the last few months, but ultimately we didn’t see a healthy, sustainable future ahead of Crucible,” Amazon wrote in a blog post.

Amazon added that the decision was made after moving Crucible into closed beta and evaluating the feedback heard from players, paired with the data collected. In the next few weeks, the e-commerce ginat will be hosting a “final playtest and community celebration”, both in-game and in its official Discord. After that point matchmaking will be disabled, although it will still be possible to play Crucible through the custom games feature.

Amazon has struggled to make inroads in the console market with only one previous game release in 2019 called, “The Grand Tour Game”. The game received a cool reception and was eventually delisted from console stores.

Shares in Amazon, which rose 3% on Friday, have been on a steady gaining streak jumping a whopping 78% so far this year, with the $3,764 average analyst price target implying 14.5% upside potential is lying ahead in the coming 12 months.

Needham analyst Laura Martin last week reiterated a Buy rating on the stock with a $3,700 price target even as the US House Antitrust Subcommittee’s report accused Amazon of having monopolistic power and advised a break-up.

“We agree with the market that AMZN’s fundamentals are more important to valuation than regulatory concerns,” Martin wrote in a note to investors. “We project strong fundamental momentum. AMZN has several hidden value multipliers that suggest it is worth between $4,500 and $5,000/share.”

Overall, AMZN scores a Strong Buy consensus from analysts with 36 unanimous Buy ratings. (See Amazon stock analysis on TipRanks).