Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 312 posts

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

#191

Post by giantg2 »

toyg wrote: post #59
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…

Meh, it's nothing to do with that, it's just a layoff round. Epic went from 2200 employees in 2020 to almost 9000 in 2023. They are now basically shedding 1 out of 6 hires they've done since 2020. That's not really about sustainability, it's just a way to drop the ones that didn't really work out.

It depends on how they're laying off. If it's by project, they might not be segregating by skill. If it's across the board, then they might.

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

#192

Post by 3minus1 »

paxys wrote: post #60

Why are people still reading tech layoff news and trying to attribute it to specific problems at a company? Remember that Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, Shopify etc. laid off large chunks of their workforce while collectively making hundreds of billions of dollars in profit. Companies lay off people because they can, simple as that.

> Companies lay off people because they can, simple as that

Pretty cynical and unfair IMO. Meta layoffs were the first time the company did layoffs in its entire history. Layoffs are super unpopular with employees. It's not like they wanted to do it.

This argument is lazy. Like suddenly there's a huge wave of layoffs, and your explanation is "they could." That really offers no explanation for why it happened now vs. literally any other time.

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

#193

Post by johnvanommen »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #78
enriquec wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

everyone looking for any reason when its obviously a massive recession due to govt. spending

It's monetary policy tightening (effective rate 0% -> ~5%), not government spending. There is no recession, just normalization (zero interest rate policy, or ZIRP, was an abnormality). Unemployment is close to lowest levels in history because of structural demographics. When money gets more expensive, you must perform, adapt, or die as a business. Cashflow is king, and profits juiced from government stimulus mentione…

This might be the most succinct description of where we're at right now, that I've read all year.

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

#194

Post by Mekulpa »

enriquec wrote: post #65
mjr00 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 can confidently say that this factors in 0%. Layoffs were happening in the industry even before the LLM craze. And a 30% overal…

everyone looking for any reason when its obviously a massive recession due to govt. spending

It's a self fulfilling prophecy nothing more and slowly fluctuating back

Adjustment of COVID, low interest rates and Russian war.

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

#195

Post by fsdjkflsjfsoij »

itsoktocry wrote: post #74
pharmakom wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, GitHub Co Pilot is barely a 5% performance boost. Still useful, but I think a nice coffee machine does more.

Yeah, I think it depends on your specialty. If you're an enterprise developer, you save on some boilerplate for sure, and it's a nice alternative to Stack Overflow. If you're more of a generalist though? I can see productivity gains of 25% maybe.

> If you're more of a generalist though? I can see productivity gains of 25% maybe.

I really doubt this. Copilot/ChatGPT are not useful at all for the hard problems and they're not trustworthy enough for the small problems. Even for the simplest things I have to comb over the generated code very carefully because I've seen them be subtly wrong dozens of times in my relatively short use. If I have to go over everything they generate with a fine tooth comb it's just easier and less error prone to write it entirely myself.

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

#196

Post by troyvit »

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…

This is interesting! When I saw the Epic news the first worry I had was regarding Bandcamp. Even after I quit trying to get a job there I'd look at their jobs page all the time to get a sense of their health. It's been empty for a few months.

One of the suppositions people had about Epic buying Bandcamp was that maybe it would allow Epic to more easily license music for their games. From the press release[1] it seems like they did that. I have no idea how well that worked but here we are with Songtradr, "a music licensing platform and marketplace company," acquiring them.

On its own Bandcamp is (was?) a profitable enterprise.[2] I wish they'd go back to being on their own. That said, if Songtradr does nothing more but give artists more diverse ways to make money off their music I'm all for it.

That said multiple changes of ownership can play hell with continuity and morale. I'm worried about that.

[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/songtradr-acquires-bandcamp-e... [2] https://components.one/posts/bandcamp-the-chaos-bazaar

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

#197

Post by ericfrazier »

Springtime wrote: post #128
politelemon wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Looking at their Wikipedia they also apparently bought 7digital, another online music store, earlier this year. Had no idea about this until now. Edit: to clarify meant Songtradr.

Epic probably doesn't know they own it either.

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

#198

Post by meheleventyone »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #86
toyg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, it's nothing to do with that, it's just a layoff round. Epic went from 2200 employees in 2020 to almost 9000 in 2023. They are now basically shedding 1 out of 6 hires they've done since 2020. That's not really about sustainability, it's just a way to drop the ones that didn't really work out.

>That's not really about sustainability, it's just a way to drop the ones that didn't really work out These layoffs are just a way for CEOs to improve "efficiency" AKA increase margins so they get a nice fat bonus - COVID overhiring has been a convenient excuse and every company has jumped on it.

I don’t think Tim Sweeney is very bonus motivated TBH! Although if you read the article he says directly that it’s efficiency motivated.

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

#199

Post by JumpCrisscross »

JAlexoid wrote: post #175
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> functions like CEO and a lot of the executive suite - are under threat of just being replaced By what? A Board-hired AI?

Half of your marketing can already be replaced with AI, and CMO's strategy is better generated by ChatGPT. Quite a few people on the marketing team should be shaking... Quite a few CEOs should just sit on the board and stick to reviewing an AI generated strategy implementation plan. Because it's still the board that decides on the strategy, while CEO typically is focused on the implementation of said strategy. CEO as…

> marketing can already be replaced with AI, and CMO's strategy is better generated by ChatGPT

Agree.

> Quite a few CEOs should just sit on the board and stick to reviewing an AI generated strategy implementation plan

Generating strategy is an important part of a CEO’s job. But it’s far from the main one. Their job is, centrally, about people. Managing relationships external and internal. That is AGI-territory work.

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

#200

Post by Kye »

tqi wrote: post #162
boringg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economy is about to take a nose dive if you haven't been reading the tea leaves. This is both pre-emptive for the coming downturn and a correction for the covid over hiring. Buckle up.

I'm curious what signals you're seeing? (I don't pay much attention to this so I haven't really heard anything)

I don't know about them, but I do know that between rising costs and already insufficient wages and sallaries, a growing number of people are riding on the absolute edge of solvency. All it takes is one big push.

Like, for example: an end to pauses on payments for debts, expiring eviction bans/moratoriums, companies looking to dump housing and commercial buildings causing a collapse in prices that other financial instruments depend on, government shutdown (and financial consequences of just the threat) leading an enormous group of already marginal people to fall over the edge.

And that's just a few minutes of coming up with plausible things. Something has to give and, historically speaking, something will.

Post reply on HN