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

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 4:41 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #163

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.

Valve built more games than Epic in the past 10 years. Epic essentially only released Robo Recall and Fortnite + extra content, plus a spinoff of Rocket League which was an acquisition. Valve released a couple of duds (Artifact, Dota Underlords) but also some good games: Half-Life: Alyx, Counter-Strike 2, and Deadlock. They also did "The Lab" and "Aperture Desk Job" which, while not full games, were quite good as dem…

Post by burnte » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

keerthiko wrote: post #291

burnte wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

I'd be sad if "quarterly numbers" is a reason for a privately held company with 40% controlling stake still held by Sweeney to lay off 1K folks. As an indie dev, I generally like the guy's stance on shifting the PC gaming industry's support and financial incentive structures, so I'd be a bit surprised if he just did mass layoffs like Embracer and co. That said, the article implies things that aren't necessarily canon…

Post by red-iron-pine » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

yoyohello13 wrote: post #160

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…

> Just make it a nice experience. Haven’t you been paying attention? That’s not how we do things in business anymore…

Post by stock_toaster » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

taude wrote: post #551

xdertz wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing to keep in mind is that Valve is fully private so Gabe can not just be replaced by some random person by a board of directors like in other companies. He probably already has a will set up that details how ownership should be transferred.

Isn't Epic private?

Post by llyama » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 5:53 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #525

llyama wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big reason it feels like nobody competes with steam is that if you want to sell your game on steam it can't be cheaper elsewhere. So any other store can't compete on price. If you don't sell your game on steam you are missing 90% of the market. So as long as Valve continue to make steam good enough, nobody has an incentive to switch. It's an abusive monopoly. Steam take 30% of revenue from developers and Epic take…

Are you seriously blaming Steam for game developers setting the price of their games the same on all platforms? They're the ones pocketing that 18% difference by the way and that 18% difference is literally the selling point that is supposed to lure in game developers to the epic games store. There has never been a promise of cheaper games. The "most favored nation" pricing you're complaining about being abusive refe…