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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

#571

Post by pipes »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #95
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…

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…

That's not how I see it at all. Steam has some abusive policies like not allowing your game to be on other platforms for a cheaper price. They take 30 percent cut. Compare that to epic takes nothing on first million revenue and then 12 percent.

Epic are trying to break into what is nearly a monopoly.

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

#572

Post by usrusr »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #394
usrusr wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Valve started to routinely do Bad Things on Steam they'd be gone pretty quickly. Many would go to GoG, some just stop buying games. Bad Things do occasionally happen (bad things like those "oops, we don't actually have licenses for the music used in the game you bought" revokes), but Valve keeps succeeding in keeping it to a rather low background noise level. Competitors have two decades of being that good or bett…

I heard the same thing for Discord last month, and reddit and Twitter a few years back. It kind of worked for Twitter due to be outstandiningly bad, but it still didn't "kill" Twitter in the colloquial sense. I don't see it going down any differently with Steam. It may take a dent and open up a competitor, but it won't do a move so catastrophic that it losses its leader status from that alone.

Which of them are privately owned? In a publicly traded company, there's an inherent logic that people who believe that the company can get by with squeezing customers a little harder will end up with higher projections than those who think it's better to get by with a moderate approach. Price goes up with the bids from the squeezers and occasionally a moderate will sell until eventually the squeezers own an identity-defining fraction. Valve only is what it is because of the ownership structure, its closeness to being bootstrapped (I assume that in reality ownership is a little more complicated, but close enough)

We could also call those squeezers "optimists", and publicly traded implies ownership by the most optimistic (well, the most optimistic who have money to invest). Leading to behavior patterns that could be described as suicidally chasing the most unrealistic money making projections. (and founder majority stakes are surprisingly susceptible to falling in line with those optimists, because those owners still don't want to see their valuation going down, doubly so of they ever started borrowing against their stakes)

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

#574

Post by happymellon »

croon wrote: post #513
mort96 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I don't agree. The reason I personally prefer Steam is that all my existing games are on Steam so if I keep buying on Steam I don't have to make and maintain accounts on other stores, if I keep buying my games on Steam I can keep using Steam as my only…

I've rebought games on Steam I had on Epic for free, just because the platform is so terrible. As far as a metric goes, that's pretty clear. It's definitely not about lock-in for me. It's everything from local streaming, to linux support, to cloud saving working properly, to 100s of other things that become apparent if you try to do anything other than launch a game in a bog standard way on a windows machine.

Doing Big Picture Mode well is another.

Epic have had decades to get any one of these right, and yet they refuse to meet us even half way on a single point.

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

#575

Post by happymellon »

codebje wrote: post #436
mort96 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I don't agree. The reason I personally prefer Steam is that all my existing games are on Steam so if I keep buying on Steam I don't have to make and maintain accounts on other stores, if I keep buying my games on Steam I can keep using Steam as my only…

You don't need to move stores, though, do you? Want to play a Steam exclusive? Fine, launch Steam. Want to play an Epic exclusive? Fine, launch Epic. What you do need is to avoid tying your game socialisation to a _store_. Some day, Steam will be enshittified too.

And yet Epic is shitty today.

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

#576

Post by happymellon »

pjmlp wrote: post #508
pas wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it was pretty meh back then, so people had pretty understandable reasons. it made LAN parties harder for example :) but it got a lot better. Epic had more money and time compared to Valve. and their store is still worse. sure, Steam has an enormous moat, but that won't be the case forever, Epic should be ready with a nice platform to exploit niches that Valve misses instead they hemorrhage money on things that does n…

Indeed people behave as if Gabe would live forever, or Valve's management will always take the perfect decisions. Eventually like it comes to all of us, there will be time to a new generation of game stores, or gaming devices.

But it won't be Epic unless they change their attitude.

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

#577

Post by TitaRusell »

ikiris wrote: post #437
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 main feature they don't want to add is making it easy to tell when games are crap by user reviews

I bought a game on Epic once but I ran into some problems. Epic doesn't have a community so I had to ask for help on the Steam forums..

Can't escape the feeling that Epic just want to sell games without engaging with their customers much.

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

#578

Post by jamesfinlayson »

tharkun__ wrote: post #399
wongarsu wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another big thing is trust. With any of these digital markets I'm not truly buying games, I'm purchasing a revocable license. That requires a certain amount of trust that the platform isn't going to screw me over. Steam isn't perfect: they initially had to be forced to offer refunds, and their item economy enables barely disguised gambling. But by and large they have behaved very predictably and consumer-friendly. So…

The big "test" there for Steam will be when "Gabe goes away". It's gonna happen sooner or later.

I thought he was already effectively retired. Not sure who's running the show now but the COO Scott has been there 20+ years I think.

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

#579

Post by jamesfinlayson »

ChoGGi wrote: post #379
jrozner wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People hated steam when it launched but you needed it to play CS 1.6. It made installing mods easier. Then HL2 released, orange box, and they were able to get a critical mass as they provided platforms support for other games. Steam got better. It’s still not great but they have so much market share that basically any PC gamer already has it. Epic wants some of that money. The problem is nobody wants to install anoth…

> People hated steam when it launched but you needed it to play CS 1.6. I thought CSS was the first release on steam beta? I remember playing the crap out of it, then the actual steam release happened, and it somehow turned into a laggy buggy hunk of crap for months.

Not sure of the exact history but pretty sure Steam was launched as a beta in 2002, or maybe 2003. In September 2003 or so the database was wiped and Steam was launched, again with probably only Counter-Strike available.

Counter-Strike Source was launched some time in 2004 and then Half-Life 2 came along in November 2004.

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

#580

Post by jamesfinlayson »

jrozner wrote: post #309
uyzstvqs wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam does. That's why they're the undefeated king. This applies to everything. If you see a product category where users are legitimately unhappy; then enter it, build something actually good, you'll be the biggest and richest in no-time.

People hated steam when it launched but you needed it to play CS 1.6. It made installing mods easier. Then HL2 released, orange box, and they were able to get a critical mass as they provided platforms support for other games. Steam got better. It’s still not great but they have so much market share that basically any PC gamer already has it. Epic wants some of that money. The problem is nobody wants to install anoth…

I vaguely recall Half-Life 2's launch being pretty problematic.

I started using Steam in 2007 and it was fine. In 2006 there was still some residual animosity towards it but I think the tide had well and truly turned since the early days (and I think there were a handful of third party games on it by then too which I guess was something of a vote of confidence - a few were Source engine titles so they may have got a discount or kick-back from Valve, but not all were).

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