What is Amazon Lumberyard?

Not a day goes by in the game industry without new game engines entering the market. The industry is constantly growing, and as it grows, many small and large companies try to enter this sector.

One of the companies that tried to enter the gaming industry was Amazon, which in 2015 acquired the license for the CryEngine game engine from Crytek and incorporated it within its structure. After making many changes and improvements on it, Amazon released it to the market under the name Amazon Lumberyard.

It was first announced on February 9, 2016, and was officially released to users in 2020.

Now, let's talk about the features that distinguish Amazon Lumberyard from other game engines.

First of all, since it uses the CryEngine infrastructure, it allows the development of games with AAA graphics for computers with Windows operating systems and consoles.

Apart from computers and consoles, it can also be used for mobile and VR games.

For independent and non-proprietary game companies, one of the most important factors is the price, and Amazon Lumberyard was released completely free of charge—yes, truly completely free.

When we say completely free, we mean that unlike Unity, which requires you to pay a fee if your annual income exceeds 100,000, or Unreal Engine, which takes a percentage share after the release of your game, Amazon Lumberyard does not ask you for any fee if you use the game engine and publish your game.

It comes fully compatible with Twitch and Amazon Web Services.

Since it is developed in full integration with Amazon services, it also includes many advantages within Amazon, but, as of the time I am writing this, for every 1,000 users you allow access to Amazon services while your game is played, Amazon charges you about $1.5.

So in summary, Amazon Lumberyard is a CryEngine-based game engine that can be used completely free of charge and allows us to publish our games for free.

You can go to the official Amazon Lumberyard page by clicking this link.

Amazon Lumberyard in Case of a Zombie Invasion!

We know that game engines are used for many purposes other than game development: for military purposes, educational purposes, or even the development of many mobile applications. I once saw an app in a classroom where, when we marked the answers to the questions, the optical form was scanned with a phone and the answers were checked and shown to us. This application was made with Unity.

Anyway, to return to the main topic, Amazon states that you should not use Lumberyard for unmanned vehicles, military purposes, and medical equipment, and that doing so would violate its terms of use. However, it says that in case of a zombie invasion, you can use it for such purposes.

AWS Service Terms Clause 42.10 (To go to the Lumberyard terms of use, click here.)

Acceptable Use; Safety-Critical Systems. Your use of the Lumberyard Materials must comply with the AWS Acceptable Use Policy. The Lumberyard Materials are not intended for use with life-critical or safety-critical systems, such as use in operation of medical equipment, automated transportation systems, autonomous vehicles, aircraft or air traffic control, nuclear facilities, manned spacecraft, or military use in connection with live combat. However, this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.

The part here about the zombie invasion is

this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.

In Turkish, if we need to write it:

This restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.

Amazon Lumberyard System Requirements

8Gb RAM
3GHz 4-core processor
2Gb graphics card supporting DirectX 11

Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti and above
Amd Radeon Hd 8730M and above

60Gb free disk space

Games Developed with Amazon Lumberyard

Game	Type
Star Citizen	MMO, FPS
Breakaway	MOBA
New World	MMO
Coffence	Fighting Game
Deadhaus Sonata	ARPG
The Grand Tour Game	Race
The DRG Initiative	TPS Shooter

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What is Amazon Lumberyard?