Amazon has announced that its Luna video game streaming service will be incorporated into Prime Video, allowing Prime subscribers to play games directly through the video app. It follows similar moves at Netflix, where gaming titles were made available as part of the main video streaming service, leading to a “strong uptake” by players as a result.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Jeff Gattis, general manager for Amazon Luna and Amazon Game Studios, explains the background behind the changes, as well as Amazon’s strategy for games going forward, its stance on exclusivity, and the huge, unaddressed audience for video games.
Gattis was previously general manager for Xbox platforms and subscriptions, and when he joined Amazon in March 2025, he found a company whose disparate parts didn’t talk to each other. Without even counting the streaming platform Twitch, the company previously had three separate gaming divisions, all doing their own thing entirely independently.
“We had Amazon Game Studios, which of course [was] mostly making MMOs that were going on different platforms, operating really independently as a game studio,” he explains. “We had the Luna team, set in a different part of the organisation, that had built this cloud technology and was trying to figure out how to establish Luna as a gaming platform. Then we had a third group called Prime Gaming, which was effectively a benefit for Prime members, where they gave away game content and other things that you go claim on other platforms, which is sort of weird.
“But none of these businesses were communicating with each other. Really, we were all operating autonomously. So that’s one of the big changes we’ve made in the last year. We just kind of zoomed out and said, ‘OK, we’ve got these three things, how do we make these things work together?’ So that was the logic behind consolidating all three of these things.”
Now, everything is organised under Gattis, who describes Amazon’s gaming group as being organised into two pillars. “Luna is our gaming platform,” he says, “and Amazon Game Studios is our development platform.”
Games produced by Amazon Game Studios will be published on Luna, although some titles like the upcoming Tomb Raider games Legacy of Atlantis and Catalyst, will be available on other platforms as well. Gattis says exclusives will be decided on a case by case basis, not totally unlike Xbox’s strategy. “We do believe in exclusives though,” he says, “and I think it’s an important part of sort of building a gaming platform.”
More generally, Gattis is excited about bringing some joined-up thinking to Amazon’s vast portfolio. He notes that the giant firm has access to a wealth of IP through Prime Video and MGM Studios, as well as powerful distribution and reach through Amazon Web Services and Twitch. “The problem is they’ve never been really working together to help us build a gaming platform,” he says. “So we’ve made some really good strides, coming from the top of the company all the way down, to start doing more of that integration and using those properties to help us with Luna.”
The unaddressed market
Gattis is convinced that growth in the games industry won’t come from the cutting edge. “The world doesn’t need another high-end gaming platform,” he says.
“Between Steam, and PlayStation, and Xbox, even Epic Game Store, there’s lots of places to go buy these games, and increasingly play them on all the platforms. And they’re all fighting each other for the same set of customers.”
He says that historically, Amazon Luna tried to compete on the same playing field. “The thought was we’re going to go get people to turn in their consoles and drop their gaming PCs and come to Luna. We’ve kind of abandoned that. That’s a red ocean that we don’t really want to fight in right now. But we do see opportunity for people who don’t own dedicated gaming hardware.”
He points out that roughly 3 billion people play video games, but only around 500 million own consoles and PCs, with the rest mostly playing on mobile. “They like to play games, but they’re not able to play on a television screen,” Gattis says. “We think that group’s not being served.”
But targeting that group will require a different approach. “That’s an audience that doesn’t necessarily want to play AAA competitive shooters, but they do like big IP AAA games,” he says. “We’ve done things like Hogwarts Legacy, Indiana Jones, and obviously Tomb Raider in the future. Things that we’ve found with mass appeal IP that’s very approachable, games that aren’t incredibly difficult to play, the game mechanics aren’t super hard to learn.”
Gattis notes that Hogwarts Legacy in particular has done “incredibly well” on Luna. “Everybody knows the IP. Everybody loves the IP. The game itself is not overly complicated to play. And so we’ve tried to take those learnings.”
That focus on easier games for a mass audience echoes the approach taken by Delphi Interactive with its Netflix FIFA World Cup game. Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Delphi head Casper Daugaard pointed out just how big an opportunity there is in targeting a more casual audience: “There are hundreds of millions of gamers who love football that aren’t actively playing football games.”
Gattis notes that this audience is “probably playing mobile games today, but also would sit down in front of a TV for a 20, 30 minute session.” One way Amazon is trying to address this audience is through a concept called GameNight on Luna, where players use their phone as a controller to play titles like tri
“There’s a social component of it, but the idea is that you’re not committing 60 hours to a game or watching YouTube videos to figure out how to play. And we found a lot of success with that.”
But one big barrier to entry for Luna has been cost and convenience, with the service coming as a separate subscription from Prime Video, and a separate app. But by integrating Luna into Prime, Gattis says Amazon has a ready made audience of “hundreds of millions” of Amazon Prime customers – and it also provides the opportunity to target huge growth in emerging markets for gaming.
Gattis says that the “economics don’t really work” for the incumbents when it comes to emerging markets, with the sheer cost of gaming hardware and software acting as a barrier to entry. “So then they have to double down on the core player who’s spending lots of money every month. We don’t have that challenge at Amazon. It’s the beauty of the Prime membership. And so I think it’s just the opportunity to make gaming more accessible and to grow the pie.
“Some of these people may graduate to console or PC players someday. That’s still good for the industry. But otherwise there’s a lot of these games that these people would never be able to play.”
One-stop shop
In terms of payment for developers of Luna games, Gattis says that deals tend to vary, “much like they do with Game Pass.” But he emphasises that Amazon is licensing third-party content for the service, and keeping it on there for longer. “Historically with Luna and Prime Gaming, there were things that were going on for a month. And that’s just not enough time. People don’t believe in your service if things are coming and going all the time. So we’ve been signing a lot longer term.”
Gattis also wants to focus on a transmedia approach, forging closer ties between Luna games and Amazon’s film and TV portfolio. “A big part of our content strategy going forward is going to be leveraging Amazon IP,” he says. “I think this is an industry thing as a whole. You’re seeing this integration start to happen between video, TV and interactive video games.
“It’s been things like Fallout, where there’s a game and there’s a TV show, but I think it’s even going to get tighter over time, where these video games are effectively going to be more of an extension of your movie or TV experience.”
He points to the launch of the card battler Masters of the Universe: Legends Unite on Luna to tie in with the launch of the Masters of the Universe movie, as well as the Tomb Raider TV show and upcoming games. “The vision for us is to get to much more of this world where you can imagine going into Prime Video and seeing a page that is much more about fandom and IP, as opposed to ‘here’s a bunch of shows’. So you see the Tomb Raider TV show, here’s the Tomb Raider video game, here’s Tomb Raider merchandise you can buy on Amazon.com.”
In terms of the overall mix of content on the newly integrated Luna service, Gattis says there are various first-party titles in development, and he notes that first-party and original titles are “always part of building a platform. So we believe in that. But obviously the lion’s share of our hours are going to come from third party content. So it’s a huge part of the service.”
But Gattis emphasises the importance of exclusives. “We don’t want to be a place where you can just play the same games you can play everywhere else. That was the old Luna strategy.”
James Bond and beyond
Amazon hit the headlines in June when it was reported that Amazon Game Studios would be publishing future James Bond games, after the recently released 007: First Light was self-
Gattis says that nothing has been decided. “We did not confirm anything about who’s publishing or developing the next Bond sequel,” he says. “Like Hakan [Abrak, IOI CEO] said, we haven’t even discussed it really yet. The game’s awesome. That’s great. I think it’s realistic to think that there would be a sequel. Technically, Amazon does own the rights to the game, but we’re going to do what’s right by the game, we’re not trying to bring everything into Amazon.
“Given the success of this one, I think you probably want IOI developing it.”
When asked whether Amazon would consider acquiring IO Interactive in future, Gattis replies that “anything’s possible,” but adds that there are “no conversations about that right now.”
Right now, Amazon has a lot of its own content in the works. “We’ve actually got more games in development at Amazon right now than we’ve had at any point in our history,” says Gattis. “Now, they’re not all AAA games. Some of them are. Others range all the way down to those kind of GameNight experiences and some innovative stuff.”
He also points to Amazon publishing the Tomb Raider titles. “Not all AAA has to be developed in-house.”
But interestingly, Amazon recently pulled out of a publishing deal with UK studio Maverick Games for its upcoming driving title Clutch, which was showcased at Summer Game Fest in June. “We took a look at the entire portfolio across the board,” says Gattis by way of explanation. “This happens anytime new leadership comes in: let’s assess everything we’re doing. Like happens in video games, lots of projects don’t see the light of day. Unfortunately it’s hard when you have to do that.
“But I think our assessment of that was just that we didn’t see a real fit in the market for that game. I hope I’m wrong, in some ways, for the sake of the game. I want games to be made.”
However, even though Amazon is no longer supporting the game, Clutch is still going ahead, now self- Whether there really is a market fit for the title remains to be seen – UK publisher Secret Mode certainly seems to think that the racing game niche is underserved. The publisher, which is behind Star Wars: Galactic Racer, told GamesIndustry.biz earlier this year that the driving game audience is “voracious for new experiences.”
In terms of the future of Luna and Amazon Prime, meanwhile, Gattis is bullish. He says that when Luna was relaunched back in October with the GameNight experiences, the number of active users went up by five times, although from a “relatively small base,” he admits. “But that’s a real signal for us that what we’re doing is working.
“There’s a couple hundred million Prime members worldwide. We do not have a couple hundred million people in Luna right now. So that’s our market opportunity.”
