Amazon spent 6 years and tens of millions of dollars making a huge new game that flopped and was pulled from stores weeks after its launch

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.Alex Wong/Getty Images

• On May 20, Amazon launched "Crucible," a major new video game that was in development for over five years.
• One week later, the game completely dropped off the charts. One month later, and Amazon outright pulled the game from availability and put it back into "closed beta" — a term used in game development to signify a game isn't complete.
• "Crucible" is the latest attempt from Amazon to push into the lucrative video game industry, which it has repeatedly failed to achieve.

Did you know that Amazon, the biggest company in the world, launched a big-budget video game recently?

The game is called "Crucible," and you're forgiven if this is the first you're hearing about it. Despite being free-to-play and available on the world's largest gaming platform, Steam, "Crucible" has already come and gone from the top 100 charts.

Crazier still: Amazon outright pulled the game from digital stores in late June. "Starting tomorrow, 'Crucible' is moving to closed beta," a note posted to the game's developer blog on June 30 said.

So, how did "Crucible," a free-to-play multiplayer game, go from a promising new game to being pulled from storefronts in just a few weeks? Here's what we know: