This one is sad for me as a Fortnite player and someone who lives in the town where Epic Games is headquartered.
Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
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Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#12I’ve wondered how much money was burned on Tim Sweeneys quixotic quest to re-create the Steam store. I know a lot of people who would religiously download the “free games” but never spent a cent.
It's a noble quest. And realistic; it's almost beyond reason how bad EGS is/was for so long with so much money and "the best people" thrown at it for a decade+.
Anway, it's not quixotic IMHO.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#13Quite stunned that Fortnites 5bn per year isn't enough to keep them going.
They've been pull about that much in per year since 2019 AFAIK.
I really hope this one have knock ons for Unreal Engine or lead to Unity like licensing. Their indie grants are also quite generous.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#14I’ve wondered how much money was burned on Tim Sweeneys quixotic quest to re-create the Steam store. I know a lot of people who would religiously download the “free games” but never spent a cent.
In fairness, someone has to try. We can't rely on GabeN being (relatively) benign without serious competition.
Everyone has tried already. EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Epic...
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#15Another case of reactive management leaving employees to bear the consequences of executive decisions. Forcing 16% job cuts despite years of financial warnings says a lot.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#16I’ve wondered how much money was burned on Tim Sweeneys quixotic quest to re-create the Steam store. I know a lot of people who would religiously download the “free games” but never spent a cent.
It's a noble quest. And realistic; it's almost beyond reason how bad EGS is/was for so long with so much money and "the best people" thrown at it for a decade+. Anway, it's not quixotic IMHO.
I've been involved enough with a few (mobile and PC) efforts in this direction, and now believe the US business culture can't create new ones in established markets.
The reason is the highly successful competitor, in that case Steam, inspires a sort of megalomania in those aiming to compete with them, which leads to spectacular self destruction and consumer confusion as stores try to act big long before they are self sustaining.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#17I’ve wondered how much money was burned on Tim Sweeneys quixotic quest to re-create the Steam store. I know a lot of people who would religiously download the “free games” but never spent a cent.
> Tim Sweeneys quixotic quest to re-create the Steam store
Building a marketplace or AppStore isn't quixotic - it helps build distribution and gives Epic the power needed to drive studios to the Unreal Engine, though this strategy clearly went to the backburner due to Fortnite and it's entire ecosystem becoming the golden goose.
That said, Epic is also significantly more overstaffed than it's peers.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#18For context, they recently increased the prices of the game's cosmetics significantly to, and I quote, "help pay the bills" [1].
Apparently, that wasn't enough, and the billions of dollars in revenue the game makes every year are simply too little to keep the lights on. So now they're laying off over a thousand people and cutting several official gamemodes, so they can continue paying hundreds of millions to the creators of AI slop modes like Steal the Brainrot [2].
It's becoming increasingly clear that Epic Games is a dysfunctional company that simply stumbled onto a golden goose by sheer luck, and now that the goose can't lay eggs any faster to keep the line going up, they're panicking.
[1] https://www.fortnite.com/news/fortnite-v-bucks-price-increas...
[2] https://www.fortnite.com/news/fortnite-developers-will-soon-...
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#19I’ve wondered how much money was burned on Tim Sweeneys quixotic quest to re-create the Steam store. I know a lot of people who would religiously download the “free games” but never spent a cent.
The Epic Games store/browser is awful. I have bought one (insanely discounted) game on it and get all the free games, because i like to collect videogames. But i almost never play them, because the application is super slow. Steam has absolutely the best application, then (with a huge enormous gap) comes Gog, Amazon, Xbox, EA, Ubisoft and Epic at the rock bottom. I don't use Blizzards program, so i can't judge on that one.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#20Quite stunned that Fortnites 5bn per year isn't enough to keep them going. They've been pull about that much in per year since 2019 AFAIK. I really hope this one have knock ons for Unreal Engine or lead to Unity like licensing. Their indie grants are also quite generous.
I also don't understand, this is just a failure from Tim Sweeney being blamed on external factors. With that amount of money and the IPs they own he should have been able to keep the company going but didn't.