http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/01/technology/personaltech/amazon-twitch-games.html 2016-10-01 00:56:18 Amazon Creates 3 Games for Twitch Fans The releases, which will weave features from the popular streaming video service into the gaming experience, are Amazon’s first games aimed at hard-core players. === SEATTLE — On Thursday, Amazon presented three new games it is developing, including a fantasy brawling game called Breakaway, that weave features from Twitch more deeply into the gaming experience. Amazon has released a handful of casual games in the past, but these are its first PC games aimed at hard-core players. Amazon is appearing more sure-footed in the entertainment business. It is financing dozens of original television shows and movies, including Emmy winners like “Transparent,” which are available to subscribers through its Prime membership service. The company is wagering it can differentiate itself from the sea of games available online, partly by using Twitch in novel ways. Twitch is most commonly used by players to stream their game-playing sessions live over the internet. The service is also known for its raucous chat rooms that accompany live streams, allowing spectators to comment on the action on a video stream. “The Twitch community has already changed how games are experienced,” Michael Frazzini, vice president of games at Amazon, said in a phone interview. “What we think is next is to change how games are made.” In Amazon’s new games, for example, there will be a capability called Matchbuilder that allows someone broadcasting a game-playing session on Twitch to pluck people directly from a chat room and allow them to play the next round of the game. Mr. Frazzini compared it to allowing spectators to play basketball with Michael Jordan after watching him take warm-up shots. Another capability will allow broadcasters to pull statistics about player performances out of Amazon’s games and display them for Twitch viewers. But none of it will matter if the games are duds with players. Amazon showed Breakaway for the first time on Thursday to an audience at The game pits two teams of four players as warriors and sorceresses. The other new offerings are New World, a multiplayer online game set in a desolate, hostile land, and Crucible, a survival game on an alien planet. Here is a Twitch broadcast from Thursday showing Breakaway: On Friday, Amazon also announced a set of gaming-related benefits called Twitch Prime for Amazon Prime subscribers. Twitch Prime includes free games and in-game items. For example, members will get a free character, Tyrande Whisperwind, for the popular digital card game Anyone with an existing subscription to Prime, which costs $99 a year for an annual membership, can get the Twitch benefits by linking their Prime and Twitch accounts. “It’s the first really deep integration between Amazon and Twitch,” Mr. Shear said.