Amazon’s latest foray into gaming may be its most successful, as the closed beta for the company’s latest MMO, New World, saw the game peak at 200,000 concurrent players on Steam this past weekend.
The MMO hit 200,856 concurrent players on July 26, according to the third-party tracking tool SteamDB. That made New World the sixth most popular game on Steam this past weekend, just trailing established heavy hitters such as Grand Theft Auto V and Apex Legends. The robust player numbers for New World are good news for Amazon, which has struggled in the past with some of its other gaming ventures. The biggest headlines for the company’s games up to this point have been regarding cancellations. Amazon canceled its planned MMORPG based on The Lord of the Rings this past April.
Previously, in October 2020, the company’s first MMO Crucible was also canceled after a troubled release and low player numbers. Though it looks like Amazon may have a hit on its hands with New World, the closed beta for the game was not without controversy either, as numerous players reported the game was breaking their Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics cards. Though the company has since announced a fix for that issue and graphics card manufacturer EVGA has agreed to replace all of the broken cards.
Despite the many setbacks, Amazon has remained committed to establishing itself as a powerful presence in the gaming industry. In February, Bloomberg reported that incoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy emailed staff to assure them of the company’s continued desire to make video games despite the rocky start. “Some businesses take off in the first year, and others take many years,” wrote Jassy. “Though we haven’t consistently succeeded yet in AGS, I believe we will if we hang in there.”
New World is currently slated for wide release on August 31.