Amazon Lumberyard is a free cross-platformgame engine developed by Amazon and based on CryEngine, which was licensed from Crytek in 2015. The engine features integration with Amazon Web Services to allow developers to build or host their games on Amazon's servers, as well as support for livestreaming via Twitch. Additionally, the engine includes Twitch ChatPlay, allowing viewers of the Twitch stream to influence the game through the associated chat, a method of play inspired by the Twitch Plays Pokémon phenomenon. The sourcecode is available to end users with limitations: Users may not publicly release the Lumberyard engine source code or use it to release their own game engine. Lumberyard launched on February 9, 2016 alongside GameLift, a fee-based managed service for deploying and hosting multiplayer games, intended to allow developers the easy development of games that attract "large and vibrant communities of fans." , the software is currently in beta status and can be used to build games for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, with limited support for iOS and Android and the support of Linux and Mac being planned for future releases. Virtual reality integration was added in Beta 1.3, allowing developers to build games supporting devices like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Despite being based on the architecture of Crytek's CryEngine, the engine has been developed to use many of its own custom developed systems, some of which are in a preview mode. A few of these systems include: The Component Entity System, Fur Shader, Modular Gems, Script Canvas and many others The audio solution Audiokinetic Wwise, which is used in many popular games, was added in Beta 1.0 released in February 2016. The first update to Lumberyard was released on March 14, 2016 and included support for certain mobile devices, such as A8-powered iOS devices and Nvidia Shield, an FBX importer and integration with Allegorithmic's texturing software Substance. On August 16, 2017, the source code of the engine was made freely available under proprietary license terms via GitHub.
