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Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

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

#151

Post by JAlexoid »

0xDEF wrote: post #89
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…

>I wonder also how much of a driver new programmer productivity tools like copilot and ChatGPT are factoring into this. If your top 10% productivity workers just got a 30%+ productivity boost, that means you can easily shed the bottom 20% productive workers and still be ahead of the game. I have been evangelizing GitHub Copilot (+ Copilot Chat) and ChatGPT Pro to my coworkers that include full-stack .Net/React devs,…

There's a very simple reason for it - the amount of slightly customized code is directly proportional to automation.

When working with embedded systems - I barely ever have "lightly" customized code. Meanwhile the closer you're to the frontend - the closer you get to having majority of your code being boilerplate.

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

#152

Post by AYBABTME »

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…

LLM code generation tools are producing output equivalent to a new grad who doesn't know much how to write code that integrates well in a program. It churns out a lot of text but every bit of it needs to be questioned and reviewed. As such it's not exactly a productivity booster where correctness matters, it's actually a liability. But for churning out code that isn't critical, it's great.

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

#153

Post by Pulcinella »

intelVISA wrote: post #90
fidotron wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a curious phenomenon in decent sized companies where the more money they have the more problems they have. When flush with cash the middle managers love to overspend and grow mini empires in the promise that one day the product will be finished, but it never will because the warring empires require it being unfinished to justify their ongoing existence. Things have to get amazingly bad before such empires ar…

It's a damn shame the only way to get a good product is to find a company that is still in hustle mode -- once its revenue/moat is secure it all goes to offshore/acquihire hell.

Yeah at a certain point it seems like the bean counters really take over and the easiest way to grow profits is to cut costs... except a certain point there is only so much you can logically cut or optimize. After that you are just cutting the product/service/business to the bone. You can remove the suspension in a race car to save weight, but it's a bad idea.

I am reminded of a Steve Jobs quote: ""It turns out the same thing can happen in technology companies that get monopolies, like IBM or Xerox. If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful. So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. And the product people get driven out of the decision making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products. The product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies that have no conception of a good product versus a bad product. They have no conception of the craftsmanship that's required to take a good idea and turn it into a good product. And they really have no feeling in their hearts, usually, about wanting to really help the customers."

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

#154

Post by napierzaza »

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…

[dead]

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

#155

Post by ThatPlayer »

logicalmonster wrote: post #148
misterbishop wrote: post #19

Fingers crossed they kill the Games Store.

How does that help gamers? I'm not saying I'm a fan of Epic's game store or that anybody is poised to post a serious threat to Steam's dominance anytime soon, but it seems like a good thing that Steam has some competition to keep them honest.

> Steam has some competition to keep them honest.

That's straight up a line from Gabe Newell, owner of Steam: https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-epic-games-store/

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

#156

Post by bakugo »

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…

> I wonder also how much of a driver new programmer productivity tools like copilot and ChatGPT are factoring into this. If your top 10% productivity workers just got a 30%+ productivity boost, that means you can easily shed the bottom 20% productive workers and still be ahead of the game.

Epic's game programmers are already incompetent to the point that Fortnite is basically falling apart at the seams and every update adds dozens of new bizarre bugs, I don't even want to imagine how much worse it would get if they started using AI to write code.

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

#157

Post by jerrycruncher »

politelemon wrote: post #121
jzb wrote: post #95

From the announcement: "The company also announced that it’s divesting Bandcamp, an online audio distribution platform it acquired last year" I don't care a ton about Epic, but I love Bandcamp. It's my primary mechanism these days for discovering and acquiring music. I was puzzled when Epic bought Bandcamp, apparently they were too. They're being kicked over to Songtradr -- I hope that's a neutral to good move, but I…

I can't see it as a good thing at all. They're effectively being thrown about to yet another operating model which will have a disruptive impact on them. The new company Songtradr focuses on licensing, it's a b2b, while Bandcamp is a b2c. So it can be easy to see how they'd want to make Bandcamp more like themselves. Of course I'm being negative and cynical, apologies. I share the same fondness for Bandcamp.

As someone who also loves Bandcamp, I can't help but assume that enshittification is nigh.

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

#158

Post by SoftTalker »

curiousllama wrote: post #113
paxys wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the opposite. LLMs are good after you make your way through the bureaucracy and end up with well defined specs and a ton of boilerplate code & tests to churn out. I'd say most devs are spending 90%+ of their time on the former.

Idk, ChatGPT has been great boost to my efficiency filling out all those "5 min" pre-review alignment standup meeting intake documents. Now it really DOES just take 5 mins!

Standup meeting intake documents?

I think you're doing standups wrong.

Do they need a cover sheet as well? Did you get the memo?

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

#159

Post by JohnFen »

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.

> every company and every division can easily pick out the bottom 10-15% of devs who have close to zero real impact.

Can they? In my experience, they don't tend to do this when it comes to deciding who to lay off. I assumed this was because they can't tell who the bottom 10-15% are.

Team members can tell, but can upper management?

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

#160

Post by spywaregorilla »

klik99 wrote: post #134
spywaregorilla wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you show evidence of him "blaming" Valve? I'm not aware of that. And it appears as though you are criticizing his character based on a behavior he didn't do. Off the top of my head I can think of him saying the Valve Steamdeck is great: https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/141575567884990054... And him saying that Valve not demanding crossplay is bad.

Yes, this. I was going to reply with the same thing but thought it wasn't worth. There is a lot of hate towards Epic due to EGS, which I get - but Tim has never said anything about losing income due to other stores existing. Sure he's said a lot of bad things about Apple, but never about Valve. He's actually a really good guy, all the hate towards him really irks me - fine, hate the epic game store, I don't personall…

Same. Bugs me a lot. I dislike the EGS. I dislike Fortnite.

But Epic is one of the most dev-friendly companies in the world. And in my opinion they're constantly pushing in the right direction on things. Maybe not without prompting. But still.

* Online multiplayer must have crossplay

* Anti platform monopolists lawsuits

* Source available engine

* No lootboxes

* Over a hundred million dollars to Ukraine

* $250k to Godot for open source graphics

It's one of the few companies I'm actually rooting for.

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