Amazon Luna rips out game stores, game purchases and third-party subscriptions

For what is worth, Google even with all its graveyard full of prototypes and such, actually fully refunded the titles bought under their platform.

At least gog keys they "offered" are still owned by us, not "rented".

I actually miss stadia, but I won't miss luna. Yeah, I'm weird like that.

Cloud gaming is a curse, but I expect it to be more popular with the memory prices going up.

I don't think this will last much longer. I can see Amazon getting out of the game business entirely in the not-too-distant future. It will be interesting to see if they try to sell Twitch when that happens, and who would buy it, as I don't think there are many companies that would want it, due to all that's involved in running it and because it has been a money loser for years.

Last edited by Eocene84 on 13 Apr 2026 at 1:44 pm UTC

Quoting: ZlopezCloud gaming is a curse, but I expect it to be more popular with the memory prices going up.

Nah, I just won't purchase games that won't run in the amount of RAM I have (i.e., they'll just have to design their games to run in less RAM or they won't get my gaming dollar).

I miss my Stadia a lot. Really.

I despise cloud gaming, but I can see that I'm doing my hating from a position of privilege - I have a reasonably beefy PC to play demanding games on. How many people have bought demanding games to play on Luna because they don't have that privilege? And now they're out of pocket and out of luck.

I suppose they'll have to consider Geforce Now? At least while that's still around.

Have I been living under a rock or is this the first time anyone else has heard Amazon Luna even existed?
Apparently it's about 3 years old and it's already being chopped up. That's not encouraging.

I bought Madden on Stadia. Then it closed and I couldn't play it anymore because it closed.

I bought Madden on Luna in January. And now it's either gone or will be available still but with a premium subscription. I guess me and Madden are not going to happen.

Luna was OK-ish:
- game loading time was quite slow
- no IPv6
- no convenient app on Linux/Steam Deck. Browser wrapping is the only way and that also had some issues, e.g. after suspend.

Quoting: scaineI suppose they'll have to consider Geforce Now? At least while that's still around.

"Advocates" of subscription bit on re****** side. Normal people, general populous who got (barely afford) low end (sub ~0.5K) PC or even mid range ones (1K+) won't be ditching nice cash (0.1K-0.2K annually, soon more) for subscription. Location important and internet service comes into play too. RAM (hardware) price increase won't drive people to subscribe, just simple BS. People skimping, not double down on spending if things get to expensive.

As a fierce supporter of the "I want to own what I buy, not rent it" idea, I love cloud gaming services struggling and closing down. I can tolerate them as a niche thing for people having potato PCs, but the idea that studios can literally force us into a subscription-only gaming world needs to leave these executives' heads rather soon.

Quoting: scaineI despise cloud gaming, but I can see that I'm doing my hating from a position of privilege -

I do my hating from a very different position of privilege. My rig is pretty old and was middle of the road when I bought it. But, I don't actually like playing any of the kinds of games that are very demanding on hardware, so it's fine. I'd say the closest I play to pushing the hardware would be . . . Stellaris?

Quoting: Andy GneissHave I been living under a rock or is this the first time anyone else has heard Amazon Luna even existed?
Apparently it's about 3 years old and it's already being chopped up. That's not encouraging.

I find it encouraging to hear something connected with Amazon is doing badly! 😁

Quoting: shimmyI bought Madden on Stadia. Then it closed and I couldn't play it anymore because it closed.

I bought Madden on Luna in January. And now it's either gone or will be available still but with a premium subscription. I guess me and Madden are not going to happen.

How Maddening!

"A-la-carte game purchases are no longer available."
i searched for in on the dictionary, and the word for it is pretty clear:
steal

The corpo dream of having people adhere to the idea of "you will own nothing and you will love it", beyond its sarcastic tone, is failing and I cannot be happier.

MP3 players are having a resurgence. Vynil is king and wired headphones are increasingly popular with gen z as is the whole 2000s aesthetic. AI is also being slowly rejected. The world is learning.

Stream nothing. Own what you consume. Do not let monthly subscriptions consume your financial independence.

I've digressed a bit here but I do think the future is that of less big business and more small businesses working with each other simply because there will be little to no jobs to be had after corporations outsource everything under the veil of "AI efficiency".

When big tech and every other "big whatever" gets forever contracts with governments around the world they will no longer need regular small consumers like us to rely on for profits and so all of their services will be created to serve none of our needs.

We will learn to provide for ourselves again and trade with each other for products and services since corporations already only exist to generate profit for stakeholders as per their fiduciary duty.

Last edited by devland on 14 Apr 2026 at 1:50 am UTC

Quoting: Eocene84It will be interesting to see if they try to sell Twitch when that happens...

It needs to be owned by a not-for-profit or non-profit collective or co-operative.

All the "guilds" need to get better organized and take themselves more seriously. They need to double down on branding, set up homepages and better structures and by-laws.

They also need to set up microblogs like GNUsocial, host their own IRC and bridge to twitch's (if possible -- I think it is?), and their own PeerTubes. Among others.

Start emphesizing people donate directly to the hosts and their respective Guilds then use that money to support themselves and one another equally.

Right now, amazon gets 60% of subscription money. Frankly, with all the money that company has, they would be fine for a long time making far less. I would be livid and disgusted if I streamed on such a platform.

People need to think bigger and learn their lessons already.
Stop relying on closed source software.
Stop relying on centralized platforms.
Stop relying on big corporations for anything.
Get together. Get organized. Reclaim soverignty.

Last edited by EWG on 14 Apr 2026 at 5:31 am UTC

I played two games on Luna (free with amazon prime). Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Hogwarts Legacy. It was ... functional. I could play the games and didn't really have major technical problems. What I did have was pretty major input lag. Nothing you'd notice while running around in the game, but grab your mouse for some menu-ing and you notice instantly. It also made it hard to use guns in Indiana Jones. Graphically it kind of looks mediocre. Having a 1080p render on my 1440p ultrawide that went through video compression is just not something to write home about.

I have now cancelled my prime subscription. Only one more subscription left to cancel!

Quoting: EWGIt needs to be owned by a not-for-profit or non-profit collective or co-operative.
...
Stop relying on closed source software.
Stop relying on centralized platforms.
Stop relying on big corporations for anything.

I hate to break it to you, but this isn't happening with a major streaming service such as Twitch anytime soon. Twitch already has one of the largest companies in the world subsidizing it. Amazon allows it to use AWS at a massively discounted rate and provides additional direct funding, and Twitch still can't turn a consistent profit. Even if they did take 60% of subscription revenue (which is an incorrect figure, the base split is 50/50), I doubt that needle would move much.

I understand we are on a Linux gaming forum and most everyone here is already somewhat an advocate for open solutions. An additional subset of this community, including your take, is those who take that a step further and claim everything needs to be an open solution.

Say Twitch implodes tomorrow and we have some sort of not-for-profit organization/platform that is palatable enough for the largest streamers in the game to switch to. First, you need to convince them not to go to YouTube, Kick, Facebook Gaming, or another platform where their fans are already present. You then need to make the transition seamless: they should have as painless of an experience as possible moving everything they've already set up on Twitch in order to dissuade them from seeking other solutions.

And finally, you actually need to support the streaming itself: large streamers consistently hit 10k+ concurrent viewers... assume a 6000kbps 1080p stream to each person, you'd need 60gbps egress minimum to support just that one stream, assuming we don't create some magical P2P minimum latency protocol in the meantime that every single user and their ISP is OK with. Then sum that all the way down to even the smallest streamers, sending data to/from the server and just a few people. Where are you going to find this kind of performance, readily available, and at a reasonable rate? Unless you have a massive datacenter budget, the cloud is the first solution that comes to mind. That solution violates all three of your final closing points.

I'm not going to even mention payment processing, legal representation, contracts, sponsorships, advertising... it's all too much. Yes, we do have massive, open projects working at scale. Wikipedia, Internet Archive to name a couple. Streaming infrastructure is categorically different from hosting static content.