If the world ever ends via a virus that “causes human corpses to reanimate” – a zombie apocalypse by any other name - then Amazon’s got your back, sort of.
Amazon’s web services arm has updated its terms of service with a special clause that kicks in in the event of corpses consuming human flesh and the fall of civilisation.
The changes come with the release of its new Lumberyard Materials development tools, which allow developers to create games that run on its AWS servers. The terms state that Lumberyard is not to be used with drones, medical equipment, nuclear facilities, manned spacecraft or live military combat in normal times, but have a special exception.
Clause 57.10 of the AWS terms of service states: “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.”
How a game engine is likely to help, on what is presumably short notice of an outbreak that reanimates corpses, is unknown. Training simulations in combating zombies are abundant already, from Last of Us and Left for Dead to 1996’s House of the Dead. Anyone who has watched Shaun of the Dead also knows that a cricket bat to the head is the most effective method of dispatching the undead, a method which needs little training.
Either way, the rest of the terms of service for Lumberyard require that it only be used on Amazon’s servers (and there’s no zombie apocalypse exemption there) so if the worst does happen, and Amazon’s servers go offline too, you’ll be out of luck.