The goal of Amazon Games, the game publishing and development arm of Amazon, is to become a world-class top publisher in the game industry, says Laura Naviaux Sturr, GM, Operations, Amazon Games. The studio has launched three chart-topping titles so far: New World, Lost Ark, and Throne and Liberty.

At GameBeat Next, Naviaux Sturr spoke with Stanley Pierre-Louis, president and CEO, Entertainment Software Association (ESA), about the studio’s future portfolio and the ways its investments will come to bear over the next three years. That includes titles like the upcoming action brawler King of Meat and a new collaboration with Maverick Games on a future narrative-led, open-world driving adventure game, and big-swing investments in IP like Tomb Raider and The Lord of the Rings — and looking for breakout opportunities.

“The industry is at an inflection point right now,” she said. “We want to take two to three big bets a year and figure out the ones we can dial up a few notches. In our portfolio strategy, we need the blue chips with the dividends, some growth opportunities and engines and then taking some fun experimental bets. If you fast forward 10 years from now, what is Gen Alpha and Gen Z expecting from their gameplay experiences?”

Generating growth through IP

Media giants like Warner, Disney, and even Netflix are seeing great success exploiting their IP across media streams, and that’s a big part of the Amazon Games’ strategy. They’re all growing IP to take to transmedia, as well as leap at opportunities to secure established IP.

“Big IP will always matter, always carry with it this extraordinary fandom,” Naviaux Sturr said. “The big ones in the video game world are trying to get that commentary out of the depths of the internet into real-life experiences or through film and television or theme parks, like what you see with some of the very biggest video game IP. That’s an interesting vector in terms of finding new growth.”

For nascent video game IP, careful planning is crucial during the creation process, such as giving secondary characters potential for their own stories, considering what a prequel might entail, making sure the story could move throughout the timeline of your world in a compelling way and more.  

“It’s more of the franchise planning at the outset that I’m seeing developers be very smart and strategic about. Look at how IP is being invented from the corners of the internet,” she said. “You have the Alexa Fund as an early investment vehicle at Amazon. We invested in a company called Superplastic. Their whole thesis was, how do we take Unreal and this ubiquitous technology that presumably will become very common, a skill set that a lot of developers have, and invent IP through social media?”

Demographics, attitudes and IP

In this year’s ESA study, “Essential Facts About the U.S. Video Game Industry,” they looked at Gen Alpha’s playing dynamics for the first time, and found that 79% percent play video games, with Gen Z’s numbers not far behind at 76% — a massive addressable market of people who love games. The average age of gamers is increasing over time, suggesting that more and more folks are lifelong gamers, playing not only new titles, but the titles they grew up with. Bringing those consumers along the journey of an IP they love requires some strategy, Naviaux Sturr says, which depends on the maturity of the franchise, consumer expectations and what the fans want.

With early-stage IP, there’s a lot more flexibility in the ways that you can expand and grow. But big IP holders like Roblox and Amazon Games, which see players across generations, have hard decisions ahead of them about how much player agency you’re going to allow this generation to have with your IP.

“In these user-generated worlds, micro-communities playing with a few people, watch parties — they expect to be able to have different rule sets and modify the game and do that in a way that feels very modern, seamless and easy,” she said. “For most of them, the common denominators are that they’re online, they play highly social experiences, and typically competitive ones, and some form of PvP (player vs. player). It’s my personal belief that this will still be their expectation 10, 20, 30 years from now.”

But she points at other statistics like the 53% of gamers who want single-player experiences. Addressing those consumers will require developers to challenge conventions: does every single-player game have to be 30 hours long, or have a single ending, and so on, and what will these games look like in the future?

“Our capital is always in terms of long-term value creation,” Naviaux Sturr said. “We’re taking that long view in making these stories, characters and narratives, and allowing them to come into these various spaces, whether through transmedia or the game itself, and telling new stories that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.”

After a career as an incident investigator with risk management firms like Kroll and FTI Consulting, Aaron Narva was working with a big international bank client at compliance software maker Exiger. He was responsible for monitoring that client’s legal compliance after it had made headlines a decade earlier for a money-laundering scandal.

“While I was at Exiger, we acquired some software businesses, including an AI software tool that helped pull risk out of unstructured public records. And we built a tool to help identify corruption and sanctions risk in business relationships for very large companies,” Narva told TechCrunch.

That work gave him the idea for Conflixis. Hospitals and other big medical practices face similar risks from corruption as banks. Drug companies and device manufacturers get so famously chummy with doctors that doctors are required to disclose conflicts of interest: junkets, consulting fees, sponsorship of research grants and the like.

Much research shows that those who get too chummy are more likely to prescribe those drugs and devices, whether they would produce better outcomes for the patient or not. The risk is so great that the government runs a database called OpenPaymentsData.com, where anyone can see conflict-of-interest disclosures.

Yet disclosing such conflicts doesn’t stop the problem, which puts hospitals at legal risk. A host of laws prohibit such behavior by doctors, everything from the Stark Law, to the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS).

At the same time, commercial interests do need to work with physicians – the medical experts – to help them research new drugs and build devices. So not every interaction is forbidden.

Narva envisioned an AI-powered software-as-a-service that would identify for hospitals and big medical practices the actual situations that put the hospital – if not the patient – at risk. 

“A big health system might have 200,000 relationships between its doctors and vendors and suppliers,” Narva said. “Which of those 200,000 relationships is impacting you from any one of like six risks?” 

Risks range from running afoul of laws to unfavorable medical outcomes. The federal government also provides a database that publishes hospital quality-of-care information. 

Narva called a friend he’d known since the eighth grade, Joseph Bergen, director of engineering at Buzzfeed at the time, to ask Bergen’s opinion of the idea. Bergen liked it so much, he quit his job and became a cofounder.

Conflixis works by ingesting data from OpenPaymentsData.com, the hospital’s procurement data, claims data, patient outcomes records, conflict-of-interest forms, other sources. It analyzes all conflict points to identify the ones that a hospital should investigate.

“Ok, we looked at all 5,000 or 10,000 relationships [and] here are the seven that you need to actually look at,” Narva describes as an example. “Like, we boiled the ocean and here are the seven.”

Conflixis takes it a step further and can also predict a hospital’s spending and suggest ways to reduce it. For instance, is the hospital buying a more expensive piece of equipment based on a recommendation from a doctor that has a relationship with that vendor, instead of a less expensive one?

“We can make it so that hospitals are reducing their regulatory risk significantly, increasing their trust and transparency with their patients, yes, but also making better operational decisions about what they’re buying,” he says.

Founded in 2023, the company already has a handful of clients with just under $5 million in revenue, Narva said. It just announced a $4.2 million seed round co-led by Lerer Hippeau (the fund founded by BuzzFeed’s former chairman Kenneth Lerer) and Origin Ventures, with mark vc, Springtime Ventures, and pre-seed investor Cretiv Capital participating.

Conflixis joins a crowded field of health industry compliance software companies like Compliatric and Symplr, alhough some are more focused on protecting patient data than on corruption and procurement.

Narva says what sets Conflixis apart is the way it has married its employees’ careers in investigative work with LLMs. It modified off-the-shelf models to look for patterns in the data based on “our backgrounds in transaction monitoring and corruption in big data investigations,” he says. 

AI

Antitrust

TikTok

Tariffs and China

Net neutrality and telecom policy

Content moderation

Kids online safety

Electric vehicles

Semiconductor policy

Crypto

• The OneXFly F1 Pro will be the first handheld gaming PC featuring AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series APUs
• Multiple models will be available at the end of November 2024
• It’s expected to outperform the rumored Ryzen Z2 Extreme handheld gaming PCs

The handheld gaming PC market has been reignited ever since Valve released the Steam Deck – an affordable option for many gamers that inspired a new generation of rivals, including the likes of Asus’ powerful ROG Ally, and now the OneXFly F1 Pro ($1,099 / around £849 / around AU$1,660) is set to kickstart the next generation.

Using AMD’s Ryzen AI 370 and 365 APUs, OneNetbook’s F1 Pro will be the first ‘Strix Point’ APU for handheld gaming PCs as spotted by VideoCardz – they will be driven by AMD’s RDNA 3.5 architecture, which Team Red claims will improve performance and battery life. Both APUs will feature 12 Zen 5 cores and 24 threads, which could open the door for high-level performance on each model.

It’s never easy to recommend a foldable phone, especially when you consider the high asking price and the reports of hardware issues that keep eliciting long posts on Reddit. My personal experience also drives this reluctance, even though I’ve been using foldable phones consistently for half a decade now.

Early in 2023, the hinge on my Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 gave up. The phone would no longer open fully. A few days after the problem first manifested, I noticed a glue-like material oozing from the hinge gap.

I don’t remember it ever taking a nasty drop or even leaving my protective case since the setup day. Of course, I was disillusioned, and as our investigation later uncovered, there is no shortage of Samsung foldable enthusiasts feeling a similar sting in their wallets.

Soon after the bad experience, I switched to a OnePlus Open — and it made me a folding phone believer once again.

Standing out strong, literally

My Digital Trends colleague, Tushar Mehta, wrote a deep dive on the OnePlus Open Apex Edition’s design philosophy, and I recommend that you check that out for a primer. In real life, this phone will arrest your attention, all thanks to that red vegan leather that offers a striking contrast to the metallic luster on the frame and hinge.

The foldable phone trend in the industry is saturated with brands using all varieties of steel and aluminum, with some claiming military-grade durability. OnePlus followed in Apple’s footsteps, but took some metallurgical liberties of its own.

Where Apple used a titanium alloy frame tinged with aluminum and vanadium, OnePlus took a different exotic route. The company has used titanium alloy and cobalt molybdenum alloy as the primary framework material. The company claims the former is lighter and sturdier compared to the various strains of stainless steel found on most other smartphones.

OnePlus paid special attention to the phone’s most fragile element — the hinge assembly. The cobalt molybdenum alloy, for example, is touted to be four times stronger than surgical-grade stainless steel and far stronger than what rival foldable phones can claim.

The hinge spine plate, on the other hand, is made of a liquid metal derivative of amorphous zirconium alloy. In addition to raw material strength, it is said to offer high scratch and wear resistance. In a nutshell, the OnePlus Open is one of the most bewitchingly alluring phones out there, foldable or otherwise.

I could make an exception for the pink Pixel 9, but only to honor my colleague, Christine Romero-Chan, who also drove the Pro model in the same shade. The in-hand feel is fittingly fantastic on the Apex Edition. OnePlus nailed what one would call the “normal” look and feel of a regular phone. The Pixel Fold was just too wide, while Samsung’s Galaxy Fold still flaunts its tall aspect ratio anomaly.

A sigh of relief

On a personal note, however, the reality has been more pleasing than mere brand rhetoric. The OnePlus Open has taken more bumps than I can remember. Nearly half a dozen times, the phone has even received a nice slap or kick as I tried to catch it after it slipped from the table, a pocket, or my grip.

There are scars across the phone’s frame, retelling my clumsy ways. But more importantly, they serve as a lived-in retelling of just how resilient the phone is.

Cracked rear shell, broken camera lens cover, and the usual aftermath, a shattered screen. The situation has improved over the years, but those are mostly reserved for flagship phones treated with the latest from Corning or AGC Dragontrail.

The status quo of foldables is still tightly lodged in the “handle with care” class. And no, there is no escape route from the expensive repair costs. OnePlus will charge a cool $510 to fix issues with the inner foldable panel, while Samsung will require $549 to fix its latest Galaxy Z Fold 6. Repairs are expensive, but thankfully, the OnePlus Open has held up remarkably well.

A good phone no matter how you use it

The OnePlus Open is a very good phone, regardless of whether you keep your activities limited to the “normal” cover screen or make the most of its tablet-like inner foldable screen. As a journalist, nearly half my job entails reading reports and papers.

Ever since I started using foldable phones, I’ve almost entirely ditched the Kindle, or any other reader for that matter. The only scenario where I picked up another device — like the excellent Boox Palma – was because e-readers are far easier on the eyes.

Of course, watching videos is also a part of daily usage, but I am not particularly fond of pillarboxing, so there’s that. Binge-reading manga and comics? The OnePlus Open is perfect for it.

Another reason that the OnePlus Open has me hooked is the sheer joy of playing emulated games. Regardless of your taste in recreational digital content, the OLED screens (inside and outside) will serve you just fine. Hello, Dolby Vision support!

In fact, the Open Canvas system for running multiple apps side by side is still the best implementation of split-screen multitasking on a phone. Or a tablet. My colleague, Tushar, discovered his own niche utilitarian joy using the hands-free mode on the OnePlus Open.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 powering the phone is still a mighty processor that can handle anything you would expect from a top-tier flagship phone. The phone’s triple-lens camera array is also quite powerful, and the results are good enough that I’ve never had second thoughts about picking it over the “Pro” iPhones.

There are many neat features to play with, but my favorite is the Hasselblad wizardry, which you can access in XPAN mode. It tries to replicate pictures in the 24x65mm format, a signature trait of the 1998 Hasselblad XPAN camera.

The black-and-white panoramic shots captured in the XPAN mode are totally worth the effort, and they inject some effortless artistic soul into any frame. Of course, not having to worry about the storage space running out on the Apex Edition is just the cherry on top.

What’s so special about the security?

The OnePlus Open continues the brand’s steady inroads into a tighter security experience for smartphone users. With OxygenOS 14 on the OnePlus Open, the company fortified security measures such as chip-level encryption, which is bundled together with another security measure within the Device Security Engine 3.0 package.

Earlier this year, OnePlus became the first Android smartphone maker to join the App Defense Alliance (ADA). The brainchild of Google, Meta, and Microsoft aims to protect Android phones from the scourge of malware through mobile applications and other emerging threats. At the moment, ADA operates under the Linux Foundation.

The OnePlus Apex Edition, specifically, carries that momentum further, thanks to a special VIP mode that offers enhanced security and privacy. Broadly, it accomplishes a couple of things. First, it disables mic and camera access across the system. Second, it restricts ad-tracking by using hardware-level encryption.

The enhanced security measures come to life courtesy of a dedicated security chip and a shielded NFC chip, both of which have been certified by Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation, which provides an industry standard for computing security.

This may not mean anything to some people, but for anyone who takes their smartphone security seriously, it’s a really nice touch — and yet another feather in the OnePlus Open’s cap.

A few not-so-nice things

Either $1,700 (or $1,900 for the Apex Edition) is no small sum, and certainly not for a phone. For any sane mind hoping to give OnePlus that kind of dough, they better commit to using it for at least a few years. This phone has adequate hardware to stay competent, but for how long exactly?

Unfortunately, OnePlus only promises upgrades through Android 17 for the OnePlus Open. For reference, Android 15 is now in the public domain. Consumer sentiments suggest that users seek longer update cycles on their phones. Market research firm Counterpoint says consumers are now holding on to their phones for longer.

For comparison, the Pixel 9 series will get OS for seven generations. Even the midrange OnePlus Nord 4 will eclipse the OnePlus Open in software updates. For OnePlus’ flagship foldable, and one that costs so much, longer software support would have been great to see.

Durability is next in line, which is even more pronounced in the case of foldable. The OnePlus foldable only offers IPX4-tier ingress protection, while Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 guarantees IP48-level dust and water shielding. I’ve used the OnePlus Open for a while now, and it hasn’t worried me with any kind of hardware factors, but accidents happen.

Then there is the omission of yet another crucial convenience — wireless charging. Now, I would take fast wired charging any day over wireless charging support. The OnePlus Open certainly scores an ace on that front, allowing 67-watt wired charging. In the retail box, you get an 80W charging brick, which is a convenient surprise.

But I must admit, the convenience of wireless charging has spoiled me, and there’s some practical rationale behind that, too. I only have access to so many ports on my work desk or the coffee shops I frequent. Plus, with each passing year, we are moving around with more accessories that need charging.

I have 3-in-1 wireless chargers in various shapes and sizes, but ultimately, they help me reduce the cable clutter and solve the port paucity problem. Almost every week, I have found myself placing the OnePlus Open on a wireless charging pad, only to realize that it was a vain effort.

The OnePlus Open is the real deal

Overall, the OnePlus Open has proved to be the most rewarding phone I’ve used in a while. It’s also the phone that has been my daily driver for the longest spell in my career. The Apex Edition just happens to the best execution, a real flex of form and functionality.

Once again, it isn’t exactly cheap, and neither is the standard version. But if you’ve ever wondered how well a foldable phone holds up in the long run, this is the one-year review to help guide your purchase decision.

The OnePlus Open has proved to be the most rewarding phone I’ve used in a while.

So, here are the key takeaways. The OnePlus Open is a fantastic foldable phone. If you’ve been on the fence regarding the durability aspect, this one survived a near-reckless in-hand journey.

I can’t say the same about many phones out there, and certainly not about foldable devices. I am not sure if the upcoming successor will be as good as the OnePlus Open, but if you are eyeing a Christmas treat for yourself, this one won’t disappoint you.

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