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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

#201

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

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…

> Epic has many stable and valuable businesses

I don't think their approach is getting to stable, valuable businesses and keeping them that way. Their company name is Epic, not Mediocre BlueChipGameCo. I think their approach has been to make big investments into things, almost like Amazon's earlier approach where they would re-invest everything into the business and that might be where Epic now has to react to the market slowing for them and pull back.

I have to imagine AI is having an impact but not in the way people jump to about them using AI. How many people out there have ideas for games and can't execute them because they don't know the tech? How many people in the software industry were drawn to computing because of gaming?

If they built AI into Unreal Engine so that someone could approach it from a Game Producer/Designer role and not have to get deep into C++ programming or shaders and art assets, and produce games, games that go to the Epic Game Store and they take a cut? That would move the market in a way that would be more fitting for their company name.

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

#203

Post by duped »

yifanl wrote: post #148
duped wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the leading entertainment industry, beating tv/film/music. If you can't find profit there then you're not doing your job.

If you think Epic Games is unique in doing layoffs this year, I don't think you're paying particularly close attention to the games industry.

Did I say that? I'm just attacking your thesis that games aren't profitable.

Discretionary spending is the first victim in a recession.

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

#204

Post by bigfishrunning »

glenstein wrote: post #174
Ethee wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still funny to me that they would rather burn 9 figures in cash on these silly deals to try and 'trap' gamers on their platform instead of just... I don't know... making a better platform? The reason nobody competes with Steam is simply the sheer number of integration and platform features that make it easy to buy, play and share games with my friends. It's not that hard, stop trying to 'force' me to use your pl…

One of the more fascinating parts of the Xbox plan of attack for its new console is its apparent marriage of Xbox, Steam, and Epic among possibly others in a unified console experience. Having a true console like experience with a variety of PC game stores plugged in I think is a rare lane available for Xbox to try and do something other than reproduce Steam but worse, and I'm curious how it's going to go.

My guess is it doesn't go well -- with Gamepass they've taught Xbox gamers not to buy games, and with Steam integration they've given Xbox gamers a competing place to buy games (where Microsoft will pay a percentage to steam!)

It'll probably turn a division of Microsoft that usually loses money into one that loses...more money.

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

#205

Post by MeetingsBrowser »

lentil_soup wrote: post #40
guywithahat wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If Fortnite were the only product with revenue, they would have $1.5 million in revenue per employee before layoffs

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

#206

Post by someperson »

recursivecaveat wrote: post #146
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…

I think big media companies are just structurally unable to stop trying to double their revenue. They just keep pushing out more products and over-extend at the same time everyone is losing interest in them. That's how you end up with say the MCU producing at quadruple the old pace and the movies making less than ever. At some point there's just nowhere to go.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is no longer "producing at quadruple the old pace". That peaked around 2022.

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

#208

Post by Herbstluft »

Strom wrote: post #175
filoleg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic Games does way more than just purely making games. They also have their own Steam competitor (Epic Games Store) and, more importantly, they develop and support Unreal Engine used by tons of other game dev companies. If you want an apples to apples comparison (i.e., other big live-service game companies) in terms of the employee count, you got: Mihoyo (Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail) - ~5,000-6,000 Riot Games (…

What about Valve itself? They have ~350 employees. They make Steam, SteamOS, Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, the Source engine, and run four actively successful live service games: CS2, Dota2, TF2, Deadlock.

Yeah but Valve is not publicly traded, so that comparison is of course totally unfair! /s

Having skilled and happy employees that aren't constantly changing and do not spend all of their time on ways to fuck over customers and chase trends is simply impossible. Releasing a piece of hardware and leaving it open for customers to do with what they want? Linux? Not hiring people the second line goes up and then immediately firing them when line stagnates? Preposterous.

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

#209

Post by xenadu02 »

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?

Is that not an admission that his poor management and lack of vision cannot foresee any way to make profitable use of those people's labor?

A company raking in 5-6 billion per year can't find any profitable bets to make? Possibilities to invest in? All they can do is cut?

LOL. If you're that bad at capitalism then please resign and let someone else give it a try.

Reminds me of PG&E. So bad at being a for-profit electric company they need constant state handouts to guarantee profits. They made bad contracts so they need a PCIA fee for not selling me electricity. Hedging? Severing contracts? Arbitrage? Forecasting? Never heard of those, now make with the free coin! My son... if you are that bad at capitalism shut it down!

I agree with Warren Buffet's take here. A company that cuts or can only pump dividends is basically saying "we can't figure out how to make productive use of people and/or cash". What an unbelievable joke.

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