Layoffs at Epic

Earlier today Tim Sweeney sent the following email to Epic employees:

Hi everyone,
As we shared earlier, we are laying off around 16% of Epic employees. We're divesting Bandcamp and spinning off most of SuperAwesome.

[shadowT]

"We are laying off around 830 employees, or 16% of jobs. About two-thirds of the layoffs were in teams outside of core development. Around 250 people are leaving Epic through our divestitures from Bandcamp and SuperAwesome."

Super sad. I hope they will find another job soon.

[thorstein]

It really is sad.

Epic Games Profit:

2018: $3.7 billion
2019: $1.83 billion
2020: $1.67 billion
2021: $1.19 billion

You can see how they just couldn't afford them.

[Binarycode]

lol.

If they are not core teams, then they are not needed.

Developers always get new jobs because it's an art what a dev does imo.

[-Foxtrot]

"For a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn"

That's a joke right? The amount they get off Fornite enough is insane.

[Fishy Fingers]

You'd think that sure, but their profit has been dropping year on year. 2018-2021 they dropped over 60% for example.

These companies arent printing money in the ways we like to think, their overheads are massive.

[DaReapa]

Exactly. Not to mention the amount of money they've spent over the years to keep games off of Steam.

[VersusDMC]

Some of that loss of money is their fault though...like the lawsuit vs apple. Fortnight still isn't back on apple stores and that game made more than a 1 billion on the apple store.

[senorfartcushion]

It's enough to keep certain staff members on

[Tapani]

@VersusDMC
Exactly. Tim Sweeney's ego got him involved in the Apple lawsuit. He took a great risk, gambled and lost. Now the company, namely people, are suffering from it. That Fortnite one billion USD would have kept the engine going (no pun intended).

This goes to show you cooperate and work together with large companies instead of take them on legally. This is a good morality and reality check to Tim and his leadership team, and hopefully he makes decisions in the future that won't affect the people in the company. He needs to feel the pain of laying off staff (leaders say it is the single most painful experience in their careers) and take the public humiliation. Only then he can regroup and refocus.

I would say that as a leader it is okay to make mistakes and sometimes they cost dearly. We are all people after all.

[Vits]

Fortnite generates tons of revenue but probably not as much profit. At least I imagine that those collabs that have been pushing the game for the last couple of years are not cheap.

Then we have all the other fronts where they spend money willy-nilly. They made a bunch of acquisitions, paid millions for PC exclusivity of some games, paid for those free EGS games, lost revenue on EGS coupons, lost money on lawsuits and offered a bunch of grants as well.

[Lionsguard]

You also forget that they also give free games every 2 weeks or so. I have 357 free games from them and I only bought 2 with discount coupons.

[CrimsonWing69]

Maybe people aren’t spending as much on Fortnite anymore,

[ChasterMies]

About 9000 employees. Assume an average of about $100,000/year per employee in salary and benefits. That’s at least $1B/year in labor costs. That’s a lot of micro-transactions to buy.

[bazookasDAD]

They just lost a massive class action lawsuit because of Fortnite. Regardless of what anyone says, this probably has a LOT to do with the sudden layoffs.

[Amplitude]

The fact that these evil dinguses acquired Harmonix to make Fort skins makes me absolutely depressed af

[SonyStyled]

Go baby, go go! Yeah we’re right behind you!

[jznrpg]

Dingus. Love that show

[Inverno]

No wonder we haven't gotten a Rockband in years, totally forgot. Old Gen devs seem cursed to either wither away or be put in as another cog in the machine to make shite for MTX sake.

[PRIMORDUS]

Epic games net worth is $32 billion and that shit bag Tim Sweeny is worth $9.6 billion yet they need to lay off, pretty greedy and pathetic. It's these kinds of people who I wish something terrible happen to them.

[fr0sty]

being worth any amount doesn't prevent you from losing money. If a division isn't profitable, and it has become nothing but an expense, it must be shut down or it'll take the entire company down with it.

[PRIMORDUS]

Epic is not going anywhere even if they lost a few billion, the layoffs are not necessary. Now if they really needed to layoff I can understand, but to me they are not. It's all about how much more can I make that I don't really need or even will spend in my lifetime, as the old saying goes you can't take it with you, well you can one box in the ground for you the other your money🤣

[senorfartcushion]

So what? If you have to lay off, then by the grace of capitalism, your studio heads are not worth what they are said to be worth.

[TheRealHeisenberg]

Layoffs are happening all across the tech industries; this does make your comment any less or more true.

[crazyCoconuts]

You're so angry you'd wish something terrible on "them" based on how much they're worth?
Let's try some logic. Based on your calculations, how many employees would be TOO MANY employees? Do you have a specific number in mind?

[shadowknight203]

There use to be movies based on people like Tim Sweeny and when people watched it, understood the disparities between reality. To have half a billion dollars alone, the amount of families that can live off that alone, but no he has 9 billion, talks about losing profits and layoffs hit, then u have people disagree with you is just grotesque.

[Crows90]

What's grotesque is pretending you're a better individual when you simply have never had that. But of course forum keyboard warriors are the prime example of moral virtue...yeah 👍

Perfectly fine to to wish ill on others. Go give your money to the poor...make sure not to hold off from giving 20s! Otherwise, just a bunch of nonsense.

I don't agree with the layoffs of course. But would it be better for him to maybe lose the company then? What about all the others he has employed compared to most people's 0.

[thorstein]

@crow
He is demonstrably a better person because he understands that employing people while they make you billions means you make sure those same people are taken care of when times are lean.

So, yes, he is by far a better individual. It is really not hard to do.

[Crows90]

Oh you big boy! Very nice gesture! I'm sure you're a much better person than those bad guys! Lol

[senorfartcushion]

There's always the village idiot writing things like "you're pretending to be better individual"

That only says that you're a beta who would crumble under the weight of massive wealth. You would fail those around you because that's what the weakest humans always do.

[cammers1995]

Watch greedy predatory Microsoft and Phil Spencer try to buy it.

[PRIMORDUS]

This is where we need the Government to step in and ban MS from buying any more future companies.

[slate91]

Goodness man how old are yall on this site?

[BeHunted]

Impossible to prevent because it isn't a monopoly.

[Petebloodyonion]

Last I checked it was Sony who's been investing in Epic share.

[jznrpg]

Investing is fine. Much different than buying. If MS only invested in ABK and Zenimax there would be no issues with that at all.

[Chevalier]

Weird. Last I checked Sony has 5% of Epic Shares which you think is an issue to you, but, you neglect to mention that Tencent owns 40% of Epic.

Either you're an idiot with and hate Sony or just clueless. But yeah let's worry about Sony, not the company that owns Shares in dozens of companies and almost half of Epic

[Petebloodyonion]

@Above How much stock does MS have in Nintendo?
I do recall this move being the start of the plan for a potential acquisition.

Now regarding Tencent, I agree but the point of the initial poster was to watch for MS regarding EPIC.

[Chevalier]

"I do recall this move being the start of the plan for a potential acquisition."

Last I checked MS/Xbox were purchasing a 2nd publishers and all their shares and you seem more than fine with that. So seems a it idiotic to complain about 5 percent shares for Sony

[Petebloodyonion]

@Chevalier,
Nice to know that I was more then fine with MS purchasing Activision because I don't recall taking a stance for or against on personal level.
There's a difference between being in favor of a move and a accepting that a company is currently playing by established rule of the industry.

Also I'll recall the initial statement of my argument
"Watch greedy predatory Microsoft and Phil Spencer try to buy it."
to witch I respond that Sony has more chance to buy Epic compared to MS due them trying to investing in Epic Games in a similar fashion that MS was investing share in Nintendo.

So you can call me an idiot all you want but unless you can provide an Interest for MS in Epic Games it seems that Sony has more chance to make a move on EPIC compared to MS.
https://www.theverge.com/20...
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[Barlos]

Can guarantee they'll be circling like vultures

[Knightofelemia]

Always disappointing when people lose their jobs. Bet some of those people have been years and are loyal. That's what most jobs lack is people who actually care about their jobs. But I bet the CEO will get a big raise out of this decision. I wonder if they are losing their money on their digital store?

[RhinoGamer88]

Again, another tech company that through bad leadership decisions has laid off hundreds. Where is the accountability to the senior leadership?! At the very least, the C Suite and V suite should not get bonuses this year. Frankly, a few should be fired as well for this debacle. Reminds me of Phil and his Xbox team...massive failures - no repercussions.

[anast]

Typical corporate sleaze, but we all support it.

[gold_drake]

its sad to see, especially if its so many people.

[RiseNShine]

I can't believe that giving free games away every week and signing exclusivity deals for millions of dollars to keep games out of Steam isn't profitable, who would have thought that.

[DazaMc]

My title would have been "Epic Lay-offs"

[Hereandthere]

Someone has to pay for that 245 million fortnite lawsuit payout.

[bazookasDAD]

This person gets it.

[Philaroni]

This is some 'Epic' lay offs.

I feel bad already for saying that.

[Einhander1972]

I think it's funny that everyone seems bent out of shape by Epic laying off less than 1000 people, but after Microsoft bought Zenimax they laid off around 10,000 people primarily from their gaming division and I didn't see anyone really bent out of shape about it. And that was after they had only a few months earlier laid off 20,000 people. And Microsoft was raking in the profits as well.

[attilayavuzer]

Wasn't primarily from gaming. 343 lost less than 100 people and Bethesda had some Starfield support staff let go. 343 and Bethesda only have about 1000 employees between them in total. Most of the layoffs were from overhiring during the pandemic.

[Einhander1972]

It absolutely was reported as being primarily from gaming and heavily effecting redundancies from Zenimax and Microsoft, if fact Satya Nadella made a point of how proud he was of himself for splitting the losses between the two groups.

Microsoft fires a lot of people perhaps you are thinking about some other time they fired massive amounts of people while raking in huge profits.

Please note that I am not saying all 10000 people were from gaming, or that they were all from Zenimax, but that it was reported that the layoffs focused on the gaming division.

[attilayavuzer]

@einhander1972

You said the 10k layoffs primarily came from gaming, which wasn't the case. The gaming cuts involved 343 and bethesda, which if they had completely closed down would have been about 10% of those cuts overall. As it stands, about 1-2% of those total cuts were from devs, unless you're lumping hololens into gaming.

[Trilithon]

If you gotta Trim the fat you gotta trim the fat. im sure tim sweeney did not lose any sleep over it with a personal net worth 4.1 billion USD.