Does Amazon Have Another Gaming Hit With Lost Ark? What Investors Should Know

E-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) isn’t known for its video game division, but that could change with another potential hit.

What Happened: Amazon Games and Smilegate released a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called Lost Ark this week to people who bought Founder’s Packs for early access.

Amazon signed as the North America and European release partner for Lost Ark, which will officially be released in those markets on Feb. 11 as a free-to-play PC game.

The game was first launched in 2019 in South Korea by Smilegate, the makers of the Crossfire game.

Related Link: Amazon Q4 Earnings Takeaways: Holiday Costs, Prime Price Hike, Stock Soars 

Why It’s Important: The early access bundles were sold for prices ranging from $14.99 to $99.99. Polygon reported that the $99.99 Platinum Founder’s Pack was the most popular on Steam.

Lost Ark had 1.27 million viewers on Twitch at its peak. The game currently ranks ninth at the time of writing for average viewership on Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.

Popular video game streamer Timthetatman has been playing the game. One video by the streamer has more than 530,000 views on YouTube, the Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL)-owned streaming platform.

Lost Ark hit a peak of 532,476 concurrent players on Steam on Tuesday.

After years of setbacks for its gaming division, Amazon appears to have found its way. The company’s New World MMORPG released in 2021 was considered a hit by most metrics and saw similar initial demand and strong viewership.

New World hit a peak of 758,543 viewers on Steam and was a top game on Twitch when it was released.

Amazon's success in the gaming sector could be a future catalyst as the company builds it out. 

Photo: Amazon Games, Smilegate