Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls • Hacker News Board

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#31

Post by shimman » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:03 PM UTC

gonzalohm wrote: post #14

fidotron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Always thought the hate against EA Origin was unwarranted. They 24 hour no questions ask refund policy back in ~2010 that took steam like 5 years to implement themselves.

Outside of being forced to use a game launcher to launch their games, what was the real crime? Not enabling gambling on their platform like steam?

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#32

Post by fleroviumna » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:09 PM UTC

rustyhancock wrote: post #13

Quite 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.

[dead]

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#33

Post by fidotron » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #30

fidotron wrote: post #23

With the downturn in Fortnite (and with it the dream of Fortnite as a platform), and apparent failure of Meta Horizon (at least on the Quest) . . . does that mean the entire concept of a 3D metaverse type UI is dead for another generation?

Roblox

Roblox is a product for the Toys R Us crowd. You don't project from products that work for them on to what sells to teens and adults.

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#34

Post by nailer » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

jeffreportmill1 wrote: post #27

The CEO is worth 7B+. 1000 employees at 100k/yr would cost him 100M - less than his net worth fluctuates on any given day and only 20% of other costs savings they have identified. Executives care little about the stakeholders: the employees, the customers, the community. It's their company, too. They only care about investors and themselves. People who "own" pay a lower tax rate than those that "work". Let's fix that…

Why would the CEO waste his wealth on reviving unnecessary jobs?

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#35

Post by guywithahat » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

jeffreportmill1 wrote: post #27

The CEO is worth 7B+. 1000 employees at 100k/yr would cost him 100M - less than his net worth fluctuates on any given day and only 20% of other costs savings they have identified. Executives care little about the stakeholders: the employees, the customers, the community. It's their company, too. They only care about investors and themselves. People who "own" pay a lower tax rate than those that "work". Let's fix that…

This is 25% of their workforce; this isn't some sort of greed thing it's a serious cut to the companies operational ability due to the downturn of their product line.

Maybe he could destroy his wealth to keep the employees around a bit longer but it's better for everyone if they move on and the company has a legitimate opportunity to survive. Besides people don't want to be on corporate welfare anyways, they'd rather be part of a company where they can add meaningful value.

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#36

Post by nozzlegear » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #34

jeffreportmill1 wrote: post #27

The CEO is worth 7B+. 1000 employees at 100k/yr would cost him 100M - less than his net worth fluctuates on any given day and only 20% of other costs savings they have identified. Executives care little about the stakeholders: the employees, the customers, the community. It's their company, too. They only care about investors and themselves. People who "own" pay a lower tax rate than those that "work". Let's fix that…

Why would the CEO waste his wealth on reviving unnecessary jobs?

Why wouldn't he? Why isn't he invested in the stakeholders?

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#37

Post by mdrzn » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

BoredPositron wrote: post #3

I hate that Tim got lucky two times with initiatives of employees that went against his will. I hope epic falters.

More info on this? What are you referring to?

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#38

Post by bakugo » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

Tsiklon wrote: post #28

Fortnite is 9 years old this year. Epic brought in biblical amounts of money from just this one property over this time. Where and how did they spend this money?

Let's see...

- Millions spent rushing out huge amounts of Fortnite content at a breakneck pace

- Millions spent organizing, designing and marketing 5 new Fortnite collabs every week

- Millions spent trying to wrangle Fortnite's spaghetti codebase as it crumbles under more than a decade of tech debt

- Millions spent trying and failing to keep the content pipeline flowing at a constant speed despite the tech debt

- Millions spent developing a failed Roblox competitor inside Fortnite

- Millions spent paying people to create awful AI generated games in their failed Roblox competitor

- Millions spent developing their own "metaverse" of brand-focused modes that nobody plays in their failed Roblox competitor

- Millions spent developing a failed Steam competitor

- Millions spent paying off developers to release their games exclusively on their failed Steam competitor

- Millions spent giving away free games every week on their failed Steam competitor

- Millions spent lining executives' pockets

It's really not hard to see where all that money is going.

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#39

Post by fleroviumna » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

jeffreportmill1 wrote: post #27

The CEO is worth 7B+. 1000 employees at 100k/yr would cost him 100M - less than his net worth fluctuates on any given day and only 20% of other costs savings they have identified. Executives care little about the stakeholders: the employees, the customers, the community. It's their company, too. They only care about investors and themselves. People who "own" pay a lower tax rate than those that "work". Let's fix that…

[dead]

Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls

#40

Post by lentil_soup » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

guywithahat wrote: post #35

jeffreportmill1 wrote: post #27

The CEO is worth 7B+. 1000 employees at 100k/yr would cost him 100M - less than his net worth fluctuates on any given day and only 20% of other costs savings they have identified. Executives care little about the stakeholders: the employees, the customers, the community. It's their company, too. They only care about investors and themselves. People who "own" pay a lower tax rate than those that "work". Let's fix that…

This is 25% of their workforce; this isn't some sort of greed thing it's a serious cut to the companies operational ability due to the downturn of their product line. Maybe he could destroy his wealth to keep the employees around a bit longer but it's better for everyone if they move on and the company has a legitimate opportunity to survive. Besides people don't want to be on corporate welfare anyways, they'd rather…

> downturn of their product line

a product line that is still expected to make $6B this year plus a bunch of other massive IPs. Come on, if he can't keep the team together with that budget then he should step aside and let someone in charge who can.