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Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

bloomberg.com

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Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#41

Post by paxys »

n4r9 wrote: post #36
eigenvalue wrote: post #26

This is probably just continued post-COVID demand normalization. Basically all software and gaming got a massive bump that was obviously going to have an unsustainable component to it. But in many cases companies planned like it was totally sustainable and would continue. That’s why even super profitable companies like Microsoft and Epic are doing layoffs in 2023. The other reason of course is that they went a bit cr…

The first two paras I agree sound fairly likely. Regarding the second para, the interesting part for me is: how do these companies determine which are the unproductive devs? My impression so far is that senior management has no way of measuring this, given how little data is provided to back up decisions to RTO. Not so sure about the third para. Why would one company be more ahead of the game than any other, if indee…

It's not possible to measure with 100% accuracy, but let's not kid ourselves every company and every division can easily pick out the bottom 10-15% of devs who have close to zero real impact. The actual number in fact is likely far greater than that.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#42

Post by JumpCrisscross »

BazookaMusic wrote: post #37
eigenvalue wrote: post #26

This is probably just continued post-COVID demand normalization. Basically all software and gaming got a massive bump that was obviously going to have an unsustainable component to it. But in many cases companies planned like it was totally sustainable and would continue. That’s why even super profitable companies like Microsoft and Epic are doing layoffs in 2023. The other reason of course is that they went a bit cr…

Anecdotal experience but most of the people I've seen being fired in one of the big ones are senior people working in customer facing roles, where the expectation is that they will be replaced by AI and wishful thinking. Newly hired people were more junior and cheaper than previous employees so it makes no sense to fire them.

> most of the people I've seen being fired in one of the big ones are senior people working in customer facing roles

Which industry? I’m seeing a lot of middle layers being reduced, but not the rainmakers.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#43

Post by bpiche »

staticautomatic wrote: post #24
jsnell wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, those kinds of one-off events don't cause an otherwise profitable company to lay off people.

There are certainly situations where an adverse result in a lawsuit can lead to layoffs despite being a “one-off event”. I’ve worked on at least a few that were genuine “bet the company” cases. But a $245M loss is typically not in the ballpark for a big company. To trigger layoffs you usually need to be talking about billions or injunctions.

The total is more like 500mm. If I recall, it was 250mm for refunds, and 250mm in penalties. It's a large amount of $$$

Edit: to be clear, it's the largest fine the FTC has ever imposed, it is a historically large amount of $$$

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#44

Post by Mistletoe »

danielvaughn wrote: post #30

Shouldn't there be games coming out fairly soon (next 1-2 years) that take advantage of Lumen/Nanite/Quixel/Metahuman? From my POV, the future looks bright for Unreal because those technologies give it a pretty crazy edge over its competitors, and that's not even taking into account the Unity fiasco.

For people like me that didn't know what this is.

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/metahuman

Pretty amazing. Although I don't know if I even need characters this real in my games. At some point it becomes too much like real life and kind of boring? I think I like the fantasy aspect of games too much and I like to escape.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#45

Post by jmerz »

paxys wrote: post #41
n4r9 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first two paras I agree sound fairly likely. Regarding the second para, the interesting part for me is: how do these companies determine which are the unproductive devs? My impression so far is that senior management has no way of measuring this, given how little data is provided to back up decisions to RTO. Not so sure about the third para. Why would one company be more ahead of the game than any other, if indee…

It's not possible to measure with 100% accuracy, but let's not kid ourselves every company and every division can easily pick out the bottom 10-15% of devs who have close to zero real impact. The actual number in fact is likely far greater than that.

The intersection between politically/socially unpopular and low impact.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#46

Post by babypuncher »

danielvaughn wrote: post #30

Shouldn't there be games coming out fairly soon (next 1-2 years) that take advantage of Lumen/Nanite/Quixel/Metahuman? From my POV, the future looks bright for Unreal because those technologies give it a pretty crazy edge over its competitors, and that's not even taking into account the Unity fiasco.

Immortals of Aveum just shipped last month using UE5's advanced new features. The game tanked though, because it's a new IP and released at a time where we are inundated with high quality, high profile releases. 2023 has been kind of wild for AAA games.

The game just needed a more likeable protagonist and a less crowded release window, but I'm sure the takeaway for EA execs is that it shouldn't have been a new IP...

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#47

Post by otteromkram »

n4r9 wrote: post #36
eigenvalue wrote: post #26

This is probably just continued post-COVID demand normalization. Basically all software and gaming got a massive bump that was obviously going to have an unsustainable component to it. But in many cases companies planned like it was totally sustainable and would continue. That’s why even super profitable companies like Microsoft and Epic are doing layoffs in 2023. The other reason of course is that they went a bit cr…

The first two paras I agree sound fairly likely. Regarding the second para, the interesting part for me is: how do these companies determine which are the unproductive devs? My impression so far is that senior management has no way of measuring this, given how little data is provided to back up decisions to RTO. Not so sure about the third para. Why would one company be more ahead of the game than any other, if indee…

Developers usually follow scrum frameworks, so productivity could easily be measured by overall activity, number of issues closed, merge requests completed, etc.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#49

Post by lesuorac »

eigenvalue wrote: post #26

This is probably just continued post-COVID demand normalization. Basically all software and gaming got a massive bump that was obviously going to have an unsustainable component to it. But in many cases companies planned like it was totally sustainable and would continue. That’s why even super profitable companies like Microsoft and Epic are doing layoffs in 2023. The other reason of course is that they went a bit cr…

> Basically all software and gaming got a massive bump that was obviously going to have an unsustainable component to it.

Well, this sounds logical and all but isn't always.

For example, Google's revenue/employee exploded during covid but it didn't crater post-covid [1]. So even with a hiring spree, the company is on the same track as it was pre-covid. You might need to layoff employees to get that same covid high but that covid high is the unsustainable part not your current employee count.

So some companies may have overhired compared to what their reveneue growth without covid would've been but not all did. You still need to evaluate companies on a company by company basis.

[1]: https://www.macroaxis.com/financial-statements/GOOGL/Revenue...

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#50

Post by smugma »

kevingadd wrote: post #14
cableshaft wrote: post #2

Fortnite not quite the cash cow anymore? Or they've been burning too much cash on Epic Games store? Or something else? Article might say but can't tell because of the paywall.

Nothing lasts forever, even in video games. The number of games that have stayed strong as long as Fortnite is vanishingly small. It doesn't help that they're no longer on mobile devices, they earned a lot of money there Based on 3rd-party statistics they still have hundreds of millions of players, though.

Mario is still going strong.
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