Amazon is laying off about 180 employees from the gaming department, including the full Game Growth and Crown Channel teams, reports Aftermath.

Amazon has confirmed the news of the layoffs and shared an internal letter that employees received from Christoph Hartmann, Vice President of Amazon Games:

“We’ve listened to our customers and we know delivering free games every month is what they want most, so we are refining our Prime benefit to increase our focus there. With these changes in our business approach come changes to our resourcing, resulting in the elimination of just over 180 roles.”

This is the second time this year that Amazon Games has laid off employees. In April, the company cut 100 jobs, and over the past year, Amazon has laid off more than 27 thousand employees from all departments.

“I know this is difficult news and that the impact will be felt widely,” Hartmann wrote. “It never feels good to say goodbye to colleagues. This isn’t a decision the leadership team came to quickly; it was the result of extensive considerations and road mapping for our future. We are proud of the work the teams have been doing, pushing into new areas with weekly content on Crown Channel, and finding more ways to help publishers reach new audiences with Game Growth. But after further evaluation of our businesses, it became clear that we need focus our resources and efforts to deliver great games to players now and in the future.”

Back in early 2021, it was reported that Amazon spends about $500 million a year on its gaming division, which has not managed to release a single really successful game in 11 years, except for the MMORPG New World, and it lost 95% of players in 2 years.