Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff • Hacker News Board

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#81

Post by schemescape » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:00 PM UTC

andersa wrote: post #25

lfkdev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortnite is still a massive cash cow, but man they burn actual billions for the Epic Store which still isn't very epic and is missing most basic features.

It's actually mind blowing how much money they spend on user acquisition while the thing is still full of bugs! Why does it take ages to open? Why did downloading some games launch another launcher that downloaded the game again? Why did it sometimes not switch to idle when in the background and keep wasting CPU? Why does the UI sometimes just randomly not work? Why is every interaction with it so slow ? Why does it…

One more: the Epic store web site scales games’ images, leading to ugly scaling artifacts—something I haven’t seen on a major web site since the 90s.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#82

Post by hiddencost » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

mjr00 wrote: post #55

eigenvalue wrote: post #26

This is probably just continued post-COVID demand normalization. Basically all software and gaming got a massive bump that was obviously going to have an unsustainable component to it. But in many cases companies planned like it was totally sustainable and would continue. That’s why even super profitable companies like Microsoft and Epic are doing layoffs in 2023. The other reason of course is that they went a bit cr…

> I wonder also how much of a driver new programmer productivity tools like copilot and ChatGPT are factoring into this. If your top 10% productivity workers just got a 30%+ productivity boost, that means you can easily shed the bottom 20% productive workers and still be ahead of the game. I can confidently say that this factors in 0%. Layoffs were happening in the industry even before the LLM craze. And a 30% overal…

A lot of big shops are choking under bureaucracy and process right now, which is the sort of things LLMs are good at.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#83

Post by soupfordummies » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

ursuscamp wrote: post #52

Are they finally letting the legacy ZZT staff go?

God I hope not! :)

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#84

Post by madeofpalk » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #27

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #20

Is this my fault because of all the free games I claimed?

Tim Sweeney would like us all to agree that it is Apple’s fault for their App Store policies.

How much revenue do we believe Epic Games lost due to them not being on iOS or Android anymore?

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#85

Post by philipwhiuk » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

andersa wrote: post #25

lfkdev wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortnite is still a massive cash cow, but man they burn actual billions for the Epic Store which still isn't very epic and is missing most basic features.

It's actually mind blowing how much money they spend on user acquisition while the thing is still full of bugs! Why does it take ages to open? Why did downloading some games launch another launcher that downloaded the game again? Why did it sometimes not switch to idle when in the background and keep wasting CPU? Why does the UI sometimes just randomly not work? Why is every interaction with it so slow ? Why does it…

Most likely because you get bonuses for onboarding revenue but not for fixing broken shit.

Incentives.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#86

Post by c7DJTLrn » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

toyg wrote: post #59

eigenvalue wrote: post #26

This is probably just continued post-COVID demand normalization. Basically all software and gaming got a massive bump that was obviously going to have an unsustainable component to it. But in many cases companies planned like it was totally sustainable and would continue. That’s why even super profitable companies like Microsoft and Epic are doing layoffs in 2023. The other reason of course is that they went a bit cr…

Meh, it's nothing to do with that, it's just a layoff round. Epic went from 2200 employees in 2020 to almost 9000 in 2023. They are now basically shedding 1 out of 6 hires they've done since 2020. That's not really about sustainability, it's just a way to drop the ones that didn't really work out.

>That's not really about sustainability, it's just a way to drop the ones that didn't really work out

These layoffs are just a way for CEOs to improve "efficiency" AKA increase margins so they get a nice fat bonus - COVID overhiring has been a convenient excuse and every company has jumped on it.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#87

Post by misterbishop » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #21

misterbishop wrote: post #19

Fingers crossed they kill the Games Store.

Why?

[flagged]

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#88

Post by debacle » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

Epic has done a poor job activating its storefront. Steam is ready for a competitor that can pull in AAA titles, but there really is no reason to use Epic if a game is also on Steam - Steam is far and away the better app.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#89

Post by 0xDEF » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

eigenvalue wrote: post #26

This is probably just continued post-COVID demand normalization. Basically all software and gaming got a massive bump that was obviously going to have an unsustainable component to it. But in many cases companies planned like it was totally sustainable and would continue. That’s why even super profitable companies like Microsoft and Epic are doing layoffs in 2023. The other reason of course is that they went a bit cr…

>I wonder also how much of a driver new programmer productivity tools like copilot and ChatGPT are factoring into this. If your top 10% productivity workers just got a 30%+ productivity boost, that means you can easily shed the bottom 20% productive workers and still be ahead of the game.

I have been evangelizing GitHub Copilot (+ Copilot Chat) and ChatGPT Pro to my coworkers that include full-stack .Net/React devs, Python data science people, and embedded C devs.

Only the .Net/React devs have been sticking to both Copilot and ChatGPT Pro. The Python data science are using ChatGPT Pro but have dropped Copilot. The embedded C devs are using neither.

Re: Epic Games is laying off 16% of its staff

#90

Post by intelVISA » Thu, Sep 28, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #63

andersa wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually mind blowing how much money they spend on user acquisition while the thing is still full of bugs! Why does it take ages to open? Why did downloading some games launch another launcher that downloaded the game again? Why did it sometimes not switch to idle when in the background and keep wasting CPU? Why does the UI sometimes just randomly not work? Why is every interaction with it so slow ? Why does it…

There is a curious phenomenon in decent sized companies where the more money they have the more problems they have. When flush with cash the middle managers love to overspend and grow mini empires in the promise that one day the product will be finished, but it never will because the warring empires require it being unfinished to justify their ongoing existence. Things have to get amazingly bad before such empires ar…

It's a damn shame the only way to get a good product is to find a company that is still in hustle mode -- once its revenue/moat is secure it all goes to offshore/acquihire hell.