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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

#341

Post by johnnyanmac »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #219
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…

> 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 th…

The litigation angle to legitmatize a mobile storefront was smart. Having a company able to offer premium mobile games with a proven track record could have had it stand out from Steam, or at least open on an untapped market.

But it seems that gamble slowed as the economy did. Worse yet, China and Korea have gotten much more attractive to get people into their casinos. Competition is stiffer than ever.

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

#342

Post by oliyoung »

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…

> better off building a war chest and pulling a Valve

They tried, it's called the Epic Game Store

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

#344

Post by johnnyanmac »

vablings wrote: post #284
brendoelfrendo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

15 years is not some insane gap that you can't get around. The biggest issue is that the EGS is just an inferior experience compared to steam, that's simply it. If Epic games really wanted to start eating away at steams market share, they would do one thing. Make EGS not shitty for the user

15 years is a humongous gap. Almost an entire generation. Do you expect to make a Facebook killer in 2022? A WOW killer in 2017? Make a DOTA killer right now?

There's so many people who aren't even your market, they are an "one game player". You can't target that realistically unless that one game shits the bed.

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

#345

Post by VoidWarranty »

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 store is quite a cost. They also have a billion engineers working in every different direction contributing to UE.

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

#346

Post by butterlesstoast »

zer00eyz wrote: post #166
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…

The irony here should be lost on no one. The the lawsuit with apple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple The massive set of fines... https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/12/... > Just make it a nice experience. That might get in the way of greed and hubris.

Anyone else find it interesting the massive set of fines financially lines up with their "Savings findings"?

> together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place.

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

#347

Post by _cs2017_ »

genthree wrote: post #98
Anvoker wrote: post #79

Often when I see layoffs like this, I can't help but think "Wow that company has so many employees and yet, in practice, does so little". This perhaps a rather uncharitable sentiment, but I can't help but have it. Yes, Unreal Engine keeps getting improved, more Fortnite content gets produced. But there is a general lack of innovation, one that I find personally painful when I look at Epic's recent-ish track record. N…

> "Wow that company has so many employees and yet, in practice, does so little" Some of it is real need for things like support, payments, and compliance in a bunch of languages and jurisdictions and across a bunch of platforms and combinations of platforms. A lot of it's just that large businesses tend to be shockingly inefficient, often taking literally many hundreds of person-hours to do things that a small compan…

> if they wanted to 5x development speed, they already can without a single LLM involved, by managing better.

True, but leaders of large organizations always want to fix inefficiencies and presumably failing to. Kinda like saying "if humans stopped fighting wars, most of them would have better quality of life" -- people whose life quality is better at peacetime are already trying to avoid wars, and there's not much more they can do.

OTOH, AI is a practical step a CTO (or CEO or Board or whoever) can take to make the company more efficient (assuming the hype works out).

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

#348

Post by yoyohello13 »

fidotron wrote: post #10
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.

In fairness, someone has to try. We can't rely on GabeN being (relatively) benign without serious competition.

If Epic wasn’t actively hostile toward Linux (to the point of calling Linux cancer) I could be persuaded, but as it is now Steam is basically the only company actually trying to make gaming on Linux a thing. And because of that Steam will always get my money.

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

#349

Post by bsimpson »

OSaMaBiNLoGiN wrote: post #169

"As the first-person shooter game Fortnite" What? If the person writing the article is so unfamiliar with the subject they are writing about, they likely should not be writing about it.

Remove the reference, and that's most "news" in this era

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

#350

Post by johnnyanmac »

slumberlust wrote: post #310
zer00eyz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony here should be lost on no one. The the lawsuit with apple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple The massive set of fines... https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/12/... > Just make it a nice experience. That might get in the way of greed and hubris.

I think sweeny is an awful person overall. The lawsuit against apple and google is a net positive for consumers though. Having someone as big as Epic stand up to these digital silos is a good thing.

I think he's still at heart a developer. That's why all his initiatives that aren't Fortnite are so developer friendly.

But he still is a CEO. So there will naturally be some evils he seeps into to make the company (and himself) richer. He still has his own interests, but my second hand experience is that even these layoffs are relatively respectful compared to most of the industry.

I recognize that CEO side. But it's a real shame many people mostly turned on him in order to defend Steam. Steam sure isn't a saint either.

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