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

reuters.com

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

#131

Post by rdtsc »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #93
Quarrelsome wrote: post #87

> "We're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded," he said. Sorry, HOW?!? How can a company like Epic games with one of the most successful gaming products of the last few decades be losing money with a product that is so mature? Almost every other games developer would love to be in their position on Fortnite but they've somehow turned that into a loss…

The epic store with its giveaways and exclusivity deals is probably burning money.

Wonder how developers working on profitable parts feel about it. I’ve been at an employer who burned their cash on vanity projects and hubris and turned around to people working on the bread and butter profitable parts and said “sorry hard times hit, no bonuses this year, we have to tighten our belts”. It's when I left.

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

#132

Post by yifanl »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #117
yifanl wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at NVidia's stock price during the period when they announced a pivot away from gaming.

Nvidia doesn't make games, this is one of the worst takes I've ever seen on this site.

They made products that were effectively only targeted at the gaming audience, and when they pivoted, they were rewarded substantially, as the wider market recognizes how small the niche they used to be in was compared to where they are now.

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

#133

Post by darkteflon »

LiamhCryptokeys wrote: post #118

The Valve comparison is apt. The difference is Valve built Steam as infrastructure first, then quietly stepped back from games. Epic did it backwards — they built the game first, then tried to force the infrastructure (EGS) into existence with money. Much harder to do it that way.

I remember when Steam was just something I had to crack to play HL2 as a broke uni student. In the intervening decades I’ve shelled out for over 500 games on Gabe’s little experiment. Wild.

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

#134

Post by bombcar »

indubioprorubik wrote: post #113
zitterbewegung wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now even Valve realizes that Steam will literally run out of steam. This is why they have been trying to become more like Nintendo and selling their own hardware (with varying success) .

Valve wants a boat that is independent of microsoft. Not to go down with that Tit.A.I.nic seems like a smart move.

Exactly, and they've not been quiet about it. It's why Steam works on Mac and Linux and they work so hard on being independent of all of those.

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

#135

Post by drcongo »

tombert wrote: post #85
ivraatiems wrote: post #65

I am not Tim Sweeney's biggest fan. I know he and his company have many detractors. Please read this comment with that in mind, because while I don't love them, I also think that as layoff announcements go, this is good. No beating around the bush, explicitly NOT blaming AI, taking responsibility, taking care of those impacted. If you are gonna do it, this is as good as it can get. I think the reality is that Epic go…

I broadly agree, though it does seem like Minecraft has some plot armor here. I think people are still buying and playing Minecraft a lot. I like Minecraft, I play it occasionally, but I guess it's a game that has much more staying power than average. I though my grievances with Epic are primarily because we never got Jazz Jackrabbit 3.

My kids have a PS5 and a Switch 2 and really only use either of them for Minecraft.

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

#136

Post by whatever1 »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #101
yifanl wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because games is simply not a particularly profitable industry. There's a reason why Valve moved on from making games to being a digital landlord.

Games are an obscenely, absurdly profitable industry. Particularly the successful ones.

Lottery is obscenely, absurdly profitable employment. Particularly for the ones who win it.

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

#137

Post by applfanboysbgon »

yifanl wrote: post #132
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia doesn't make games, this is one of the worst takes I've ever seen on this site.

They made products that were effectively only targeted at the gaming audience, and when they pivoted, they were rewarded substantially, as the wider market recognizes how small the niche they used to be in was compared to where they are now.

You have literally no fucking clue what you're talking about. The games industry is ~200 billion dollars per year. Film is 30, music is 60. Not only are games the largest entertainment sector, nothing else is even close.

A hardware company pivoting to the AI bubble has literally nothing to do with the profitability of software.

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

#138

Post by littlecranky67 »

duped wrote: post #114
Quarrelsome wrote: post #87

> "We're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded," he said. Sorry, HOW?!? How can a company like Epic games with one of the most successful gaming products of the last few decades be losing money with a product that is so mature? Almost every other games developer would love to be in their position on Fortnite but they've somehow turned that into a loss…

Fortnite is almost 10 years old, I'd be interested to see the average age of the playerbase. People have less time for games when they get older.

My nephew was deep into Fornite for years - now at 15 he (and his friends) moved on to GTA V. Imagine what a treasure trove of gaming you can discover as a teenager today, looking back at a pool of 15-20years of great games.

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

#139

Post by josephg »

shimman wrote: post #31
gonzalohm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Outside of being forced to use a game launcher to launch their games, what was the real crime?

To me, this was the crime. Me and my friends played mass effect 3 multiplayer around launch, which was an EA Origin exclusive. It was a total pain! All of us needed to download and install the launcher, then buy & download the game through it. Then add each other as "EA origin friends". The whole process was riddled with bugs at the time - including payment problems and download problems. Origin would crash sometimes. Sometimes we couldn't see each other in multiplayer, and needed to restart origin to fix it. Sometimes another of our friends would join us - and it was always "oh god, what do I have to do to make this work??".

I really love mass effect 3. But the experience was traumatic enough that I never bought or played anything through EA Origin ever since then. The quality of Steam is table stakes now. And there's so many good games coming out that game exclusivity usually isn't enough to get you over that initial hump.

The biggest gripe I have with the origin launcher (and to a lesser extent, the epic launcher) other than "why does it exist at all?" is how laggy all UI actions are. Game developers can render a 3d world at 120+fps. Why on earth does it take multiple seconds for the UI to respond to a button press sometimes? Its completely inexcusable. The blizzard launcher is (IMO) the best launcher by this metric. You can tell competent people made it, because everything responds instantly. (The EA launcher might be good now, I wouldn't know. I mostly only play games that release on steam.)

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

#140

Post by zzzoom »

pram wrote: post #6

I’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.

I can't even play the decent free games I got because I can't find them in the UI. It doesn't have sort by rating (or any other popularity metric) so you have to wade through the junk. Imagine paying for that experience...
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