Sometimes companies that are notorious for not having a large sense of humor surprise all of us. That’s exactly what Amazon has done with the company’s new AWS Terms of Service. When updating the terms of service for Amazon’s new Lumberyard Materials (more on that in a moment), the company added this little fun clause:

“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 organised civilisation.”

Yep, that’s right, Amazon has your back if you’re developing for Lumberyard Materials and there’s a zombie attack.

Lumberyard Materials

Just the name of these new development tools sounds scary (or is it just me?). Lumberyard Materials? Lumberyard reminds me of graveyard, which might be the wording that triggered Amazon’s lawyers to add in the zombie clause - or it could just be because the world is overly and entirely obsessed with zombie life.

Either way, if you do develop games that were meant to run on AWS servers, you can develop some kind of medical device once the world has come under zombie attack -- let me explain a bit further.

Lumberyard Materials is a set of development tools that developers can use to create games for AWS. Within the legal jargon of the new set of tools, Amazon states that Lumberyard cannot be used with drones, manned spacecraft, nuclear facilities, medical equipment, or live military combat. Those last two are where zombies come in. Probably more the live military combat, since that clause is followed by “in normal times.”

Fun and Games

While Amazon’s latest clause to the Lumberyard Materials legal jargon is kind of funny, the company has also created a great set of tools for developers to use. In the age of fierce competition between various companies, it’s important for a company like Amazon to make developing games for AWS as simple as possible. That’s why Amazon has created Lumberyard Materials.

Developers can program games for Lumberyard using C++ and Visual Studio. Lumberyard was developed through technologies from AWS, Double Helix, and CryEngine. In order to make sure that developers can use Lumberyard without issue, Amazon has also developed an entire support system for Lumberyard. So if you want to create games for Amazon, Lumberyard Materials might be the way to go.

Zombies Everywhere

Amazon did a good marketing thing when the company added in the zombie clause. The clause is kind of going viral in the tech world right now, which has drawn attention to the company’s new developer tools. Really, it’s all about marketing, but it’s still a lot of run, right? I’m not sure how Amazon’s Lumberyard Materials will help in the case of a zombie uprising, but maybe Amazon will further explain when it all goes down.