Not long ago I was looking at my favorite games of decades past. Unreal Tournament figured very prominently, made of course by Epic. So I wondered: why did they stop making Unreal games? I looked at their game chronology. On one hand, they made Gears of War, an Xbox exclusive that never interested me. And the other one? Oh, right: Fortnite. That's where Unreal Tournament went. They made tons of money for sure. But no company, including Epic, has made a competitive FPS + CTF game as solid as UT, UT2003, or UT2004 since that era
Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
211–220 of 584 posts
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#212Earlier 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.
I can run Epic and GoG games in Steamdeck. All Steam had to do is not block them.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#213> "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.
Epic is funny like that. They arent a publicly traded company and yet they act like one.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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. Funny. Those companies don't seem to be hiring. Everyone is doing layoffs. Maybe you said that wrong? People running companies don't feel obligated to employ, therefore everyone is now Someone Else's Problem.
As far as I can tell job postings in software are up this year. Executives love expanding, it's the most exciting part of the job. While there are many sectors inside software which may be doing better/worse, I can say my company is hiring, and I have no trouble getting interviews elsewhere if I want them. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE
The difference is pay.
Although there is a slight (almost negligible) uptick in job postings, the salaries for those jobs is rapidly declining.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#215> "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…
They aren't losing money on Fortnite, they're losing money on vanity projects like the Epic Game Store where they spend tens of millions of dollars for exclusivity deals with developers, and give away free games to try to poach Steam users with an otherwise inferior product. Unfortunately it is their employees that are paying the price of leadership making it rain with their overflowing coffers they couldn't help but…
Everybody says this. It's so weird.
How on earth will epic win without exclusives? It's like launching some Facebook competitor "but you get two profile pictures". Noone would switch.
All these geeks singing steam and lamenting competition. Competition bad for me mkay, steam good.
/me shakes head
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 tha…
> i like to collect videogames Starting thinking of it as collection licenses to maybe install games, assuming the license is still valid when you finally get around to playing it. And your account is still valid. And the servers are still running. And your operating system will still run it. etc. Maybe just get off the train. Your numbers add to the awful business model these games are built on.
The majority of games on Gog offer fully offline installers, where the copy you download is enough to run forever (assuming Windows and hardware compatibility, of coruse).
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fortnite alone is estimated to produce more than five billion USD in annual revenue every year since 2018
Every year the licensing fees add up as they add more collaborations, while revenue is not rising to match.
They're also paying out hundreds of millions to map "creators", the majority of which are pumping out low effort game modes like Steal The Brainrot. I can't help but feel this isn't helping their situation at all. Then again, Steal The Brainrot often surpasses the actual Fortnite game modes in player count, so maybe it is worth it. It doesn't seem like a sign of good health for Fortnite overall, though.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#218Epic gave away 662 Million free games in 2025 alone. They pay the game devs for each copy they give away. They've been doing this for 8+ years.
https://insider-gaming.com/epic-games-store-give-away-662-mi...
In addition they've payed other game devs for Epic Game Store exclusivity so games would be available for 1 year before being released on Steam.
The whole company has been mismanaged into the side of a mountain.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
They aren't losing money on Fortnite, they're losing money on vanity projects like the Epic Game Store where they spend tens of millions of dollars for exclusivity deals with developers, and give away free games to try to poach Steam users with an otherwise inferior product. Unfortunately it is their employees that are paying the price of leadership making it rain with their overflowing coffers they couldn't help but…
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…
> It's not that hard, stop trying to 'force' me to use your platform. Just make it a nice experience.
I feel like this is good advice, and should still be a pillar of building a business: prioritize customer satisfaction, and your happy customers will become repeat customers. But I don't think it's enough. Epic tried to launch a store in 2018, 15 years after the launch of Steam. That's 15 years of customers buying their games on steam, building a friends list, and getting used to making Steam their PC gaming "home." How do you convince someone who might have hundreds of games tied to one online account, that it is in their interest to open a new online account with a new merchant and start over from scratch? Your experience can't just be nicer, it needs to have some level of appeal that convinces customers to peel themselves away from whatever platform is their current default.
I don't have a good answer for how to accomplish this. Epic tried it by paying devs for exclusives and freebies, litigation, and a PR campaign that Valve and Apple and Google were ripping people off. Their approach was hostile and didn't prioritize making a nice experience, and it seems to have failed. But I think these platforms are sticker than we give them credit for, and just making a nice experience isn't enough.
Re: Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls
#220I 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.
Minecraft is kind of a perfect storm for longevity. It is a sandbox game, that has a lot of depth. But its also extremely easy to jump into casually (unlike idk Kenshi or Rimworld). Its also family friendly but not in a way that makes it off putting to adults so anyone 5-500 could play it. Its also not so expensive that people refrain from rebuying it on different platforms.