Amazon Games VP Christoph Hartmann explains how past failures helped fuel ‘Lost Ark’s’ success

That success is a far cry from Amazon’s first major multiplayer game release, “Crucible,” which launched in May 2020 on PC and was shuttered just six months later after the player count declined and queue times for starting a match ballooned. (Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.) Many gamers did not even know “Crucible” existed, despite Amazon also owning the major live-streaming platform Twitch and promoting the game by having several big-name streamers play the title upon launch.

By contrast, “Lost Ark” has become one of the most successful game launches in history after it released in North America and other regions in February, having previously found fans in South Korea where it originally released in 2019. In interviews with The Washington Post, Amazon Games Vice President Christoph Hartmann and the studio’s head of business operations and player experience, Laura Sturr, said the success stemmed in part from lessons learned from “Crucible’s” shortcomings, as well as adapting “Lost Ark” for a Western audience.

“I don’t think any of us planned to reach the second-highest Steam concurrency of all time,” Hartmann said. “Lost Ark” reached over 1.3 million concurrent players on Steam in February, ranking behind only “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” (“PUBG”) for the record, according to Steam Charts, which tracks player counts on PC games. “PUBG” topped 3 million concurrent players in January 2018.

Hartmann noted that “Crucible” was well into development when he joined the company in August 2018. The game, which was first announced in 2016, contained a battle royale mode meant to compete with the likes of “PUBG” and “Fortnite,” as well as teamfighting modes inspired by elements of “League of Legends” and “Dota 2.” Hartmann noted that “competition in the genre was fierce” for “Crucible,” and the studio applied what it learned from the experience to its work on “New World,” another Amazon Games MMO that launched in 2021, and, eventually, “Lost Ark.”

“Looking back, we can clearly see the areas where [‘Crucible’] could have benefited from additional development time,” he said. “We applied that lesson to ‘New World,’ pushing back the release until we were confident it was ready. ‘New World’s’ launch, in turn, informed ‘Lost Ark’s’ release — in particular, we gave the game a few more months by pushing to February, and we were bracing for a lot more players this time.”

Additionally, bringing “Lost Ark” to a Western audience involved rethinking the game’s monetization system, Sturr said. The Korean version of “Lost Ark” has plenty of ways to pay for convenience in the game such as gaining better gear in preparation for final bosses, a practice that has given it a “pay-to-win” reputation among some players.

“We’ve spent time adapting ‘Lost Ark’s’ model so it’s in line with what players in the West expect, and no one feels forced to pay to progress,” Sturr said. “For nearly every item in the game that can be purchased with real-world money, there is a path for players to acquire those items with in-game, earned currency.”

Sturr said when they expanded “Lost Ark’s” availability beyond Korea — bringing the game to North America, Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand — the game was changed to include more free pets and mounts for beginners. For store purchases, such as treasure chests that have randomly generated outcomes, Sturr said they reduced the possible outcomes “to make the randomly generated rewards feel more consistent and fair for Western audiences.”

Following its successful launch, Amazon now must find a way to keep “Lost Ark” players engaged. To that end, Amazon said it plans to roll out content previously introduced to Korean players.

Like many MMOs, “Lost Ark” has had a big problem with spam in its chat function, with some players creating spam bots that advertise ways to illegally get ahead in the game. Players have complained online about the volume of spam bots they’ve encountered, while others have recommended users block and report the spammers.

Asked about the spam bots last week, Amazon announced it would remove over 1 million accounts from the game that were running bots.

As for why Amazon wants to keep making online multiplayer PC games — between “Crucible,” “New World” and “Lost Ark” — Hartmann said he thinks that desire reflects the direction in which gaming is headed.

“In the future, all games will have some online multiplayer features element because it’s what players want — games that can be enjoyed for a long time and have a strong social element,” he said. “Our unannounced, upcoming road map includes games from a number of genres, but we’ll always be looking to provide experiences that grow and evolve over time with the community.”