Amazon’s game streaming service Luna is undergoing some major changes and cutbacks starting from today, with the removal of the ability to purchase individual games, third-party subscriptions or access to other game stores. From June 10, all games purchased within Amazon Luna will no longer be playable and will be removed from your account.
This is quite a shocking announcement, as game service closures usually come with refunds for those affected. However, as Amazon Luna is linked to other game stores for its purchases like EA, GOG or Ubisoft, players will still be able to access those games within these launchers.
The issue here though is that if players purchased a game through Amazon Luna, it’s likely because they needed the streaming functionality to play the game in the first place. Whilst players will still be owning the games they purchased, they’ll need the necessary hardware to run the games.
Despite all the removals of functionality going on, Amazon Luna say parts of their service will be getting “even better” as they want to offer more “third-party titles, delivered in ways that make great games more accessible” along with an offering of a free Luna Premium subscription for those affected by today’s changes. This suggests that Amazon will keep Luna around as a service, but focus solely on the subscription model as a streaming service, and not as a storefront for cloud gaming.
Comparisons are already being made online between Amazon Luna and Google Stadia, the latter being tech giant Google’s attempt at a cloud gaming service that lasted less than four years before closing and refunding all purchases for both their hardware and games.
Unlike Stadia though, Amazon Luna does (for now) plan to continue operations as a subscription-based service, and games purchased within Luna did also come with access on other storefronts too, unlike Stadia’s ill-fated platform-exclusive games.
