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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

#231

Post by PowerElectronix »

foolfoolz wrote: post #181
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #95

Earlier 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…

there’s a huge component to gamers that they are emotional and resistant to change. gamers hated steam when it came out. and now the backlash against epic store is huge. they haven’t done a good job fixing the perception of epic store the way steam did

I certainly still hold a grudge against tim sweeney for saying piracy made them not release stuff on pc and after a while going back to releasing on pc while whining about valve fees and then launching epic games with similar fees and way worse service for the developers...

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

#232

Post by [deleted] »

bergheim wrote: post #215
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #95

Earlier 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…

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

[deleted]

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

#233

Post by raincole »

dgeiser13 wrote: post #218

Epic 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.

I still don't know which is stupider: this, or Unity buying Weta.

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

#234

Post by dgeiser13 »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #188
foolfoolz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there’s a huge component to gamers that they are emotional and resistant to change. gamers hated steam when it came out. and now the backlash against epic store is huge. they haven’t done a good job fixing the perception of epic store the way steam did

> there’s a huge component to gamers that they are emotional and resistant to change. This is just wrong. You portray people as being irrational / "emotional", but Steam was actively bad when it first launched. The fact that people changed their opinions on it when it later became actually good is not emotional, that's in fact exactly rational. The Epic Game Store doesn't need to fix "perception", they need to fix th…

You are correct. Steam was actively bad at launch when it only had Valve games on it. And they fixed the platform and then started allowing other devs to put their games on it.

EGS is currently bad and trying to position themselves as a Steam alternative when they simply are not even close to the same quality.

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

#235

Post by dylan604 »

raincole wrote: post #176
dylan604 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I guess they are finding out that running an app store isn't very profitable and dare I say suggests that the percentage Apple charges was not unjustified?

Seriously? Are you seriously making this argument? Are you seriously comparing running a PC app store vs App Store? One is the most open platform and the other has only one (1, uno, sole, single) app store.

And which one of them are we reading about laying off employees while admitting they are spending more than they are bringing in?

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

#236

Post by brendoelfrendo »

jayd16 wrote: post #190
jasondigitized wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gonna need someone smarter than me to show me the numbers on that. Fornite by itself is insanely profitable.

A game can be massively popular but many many games fail to hit the mark. Many do not see success and many do not even ship.

Ok, but Fortnite is a massively popular success, even as its popularity slips. Fortnite's run so far could have sustained Epic for years, even without other revenue they get from things like Unreal Engine. Games as a whole may be a risky venture, but we're talking about Epic here; the mystery is not how to succeed in games, but how a company that had an earth-shattering run of success in games is now in such a position.

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

#237

Post by Rapzid »

zaptrem wrote: post #194
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #95

Earlier 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…

In my experience, the Epic Games Store downloads faster, installs more efficiently, and launches games faster than Steam. The social features I actually use (i.e., add a friend, join them in a game) work fine. I'm not aware of any features Steam has that EGS lacks that I actually use frequently (Valve's VR, streaming tech, and Proton are great, but I don't use those frequently). It's not just me, many indie game deve…

I try out the Launcher every couple years to see if it's improved. I just installed and logged in for the first time since 2023.

Looks like they have finally fixed lag and freeze jank that occured on every action, blocked scrolling, and etc.

Unfortunately just clicking on the "Featured Discounts" items on the store home page.. 3-4+(more like 4-5+ on further testing) FULL seconds of blank until the game details load. An ecommerce site where the items take 3-4 seconds to display!? I flipped over to Steam and everything in the store loads "instantly".

Sigh, I'll check back in 2028.

Edit: It boggles the mind and defies reason that they can't get a handle on table-stakes UX after all this time, energy, and hundreds of millions of dollars sunk into it. Nepotism; gotta be, yeah?

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

#238

Post by thereitgoes456 »

zaptrem wrote: post #194
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #95

Earlier 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…

In my experience, the Epic Games Store downloads faster, installs more efficiently, and launches games faster than Steam. The social features I actually use (i.e., add a friend, join them in a game) work fine. I'm not aware of any features Steam has that EGS lacks that I actually use frequently (Valve's VR, streaming tech, and Proton are great, but I don't use those frequently). It's not just me, many indie game deve…

Gamers complain about layoffs, but the largest invisible cause behind them is Steam’s 30% cut, which nobody acknowledges.

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

#239

Post by burnte »

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…

> "We're spending significantly more than we're making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded," he said.

The chances this is accurate are extremely small. This is either anticipating AI coding goals, the CFO proved they were overloaded on developers, or they're just cutting to hit quarterly numbers.

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

#240

Post by dwringer »

zaptrem wrote: post #194
applfanboysbgon wrote: post #95

Earlier 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…

In my experience, the Epic Games Store downloads faster, installs more efficiently, and launches games faster than Steam. The social features I actually use (i.e., add a friend, join them in a game) work fine. I'm not aware of any features Steam has that EGS lacks that I actually use frequently (Valve's VR, streaming tech, and Proton are great, but I don't use those frequently). It's not just me, many indie game deve…

In my experience, the Epic downloader would frequently lead to degraded performance and/or system instability when I'd leave it running; I've never noticed such problems at all with the Steam client.
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