Epic Games Cutting 16 Percent of Its Workforce (kotaku.com) 54
According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Epic games is laying off 16 percent of its current workforce, which amounts to almost 900 employees losing their jobs. Kotaku reports: A memo was shared this morning at the North Carolina company, seen by Kotaku, informing staff of the bad news. It explains that alongside 16 percent of staff being laid off, the company is also selling Bandcamp, and "spinning off" most of marketing company SuperAwesome.
"For a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn," says the memo, sent to staff by CEO Tim Sweeney. "I have long been optimistic we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic." It seems that Fortnite's failure to continue growing was part of the problem. Sweeney reports that it's "starting to grow again," but this is driven by creator content "with significant revenue sharing."
Despite efforts to reduce spending, Sweeney says "we still ended up far short of financial sustainability." These layoffs, he hopes, will "stabilize our finances." "Laid-off Epic employees will receive six months severance and health benefits," Schreier said on X, adding that an "all-hands meeting [is] happening shortly." Further reading: Apple Asks Supreme Court To Reverse App Store Ruling Won by Epic
"For a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn," says the memo, sent to staff by CEO Tim Sweeney. "I have long been optimistic we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic." It seems that Fortnite's failure to continue growing was part of the problem. Sweeney reports that it's "starting to grow again," but this is driven by creator content "with significant revenue sharing."
Despite efforts to reduce spending, Sweeney says "we still ended up far short of financial sustainability." These layoffs, he hopes, will "stabilize our finances." "Laid-off Epic employees will receive six months severance and health benefits," Schreier said on X, adding that an "all-hands meeting [is] happening shortly." Further reading: Apple Asks Supreme Court To Reverse App Store Ruling Won by Epic
We are spending more than earning (Score:3)
, said the man who started a crusade against the world most valuable company, attempting to bite more than he can chew and cutting himself short of the easy cash they were been provided.
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Looking at their $5.76 billion in revenue and their approximately 5,600 employees (before the layoffs) one really does have to wonder how they manage to spend more than they earn when they earn over a million dollars per employee. I mean, sure they have other expenses, but I'm not hearing about them cutting any of those other expenses, they're just cutting employees.
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They're also giving every employee six months' severance. It seems that they're a pretty generous employer.
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he paying user base of every other platform is a rounding error on iOS install base
Around 75% of the revenue from Fortnite comes from Playstation and XBox players.
Your inner fanboy is showing.
Re: We are spending more than earning (Score:2)
He's not entirely wrong on that basis. If it weren't a lucrative market then nobody would want to publish there.
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> Why call out Apple in this?
Because taking in 30% as a payment processor for in-app transactions and forcing themselves to be the only accepted payment processor is immoral. And frankly, it should be looked at by Government regulators as an anti-trust issue.
If I already have my own payment infrastructure, I should be able to use it from within my iOS app without paying Apple's ridiculous protection money.
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> If Epic wants a cheaper payment processor then maybe they should port their software to Visa phones or to American Express phones.
It's funny, Dell doesn't take a cut of any purchases you make using a Dell computer and a 3rd party application running on it.
There's no defending Apple's behavior, fanboy drivel is just that.
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I'm actually not sure whether or not the total price of items purchased through middlemen counts in their revenue stream or not. Payments would be taken by Apple, who would take their cut, then remit the remainder to Epic. I don't know if revenue would be counted only as that remainder or if they would count the entire sticker price. As an analogue, companies that sell products through brick and mortar retail stores do not normally, to my knowledge, count the sticker price of their products as revenue, let
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lol middle man. I would look at how much the CEO makes then look an average salery of employees.
I will bet he is not cutting his pay and bonuses so of course "we are spending more then were making"
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As a private company, it's difficult to know precisely how their finances work. They've been spending a lot of money to secure EGS exclusives, leading to a growing loss there.
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I had forgotten until, I just found a reminder, that they were just recently assessed a $570 million dollar fine for violating children's privacy. So we know that about their finances at least.
Re: We are spending more than earning (Score:2)
Ouch. I wonder how much profit they make outside of Fortnite?
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, said the man who started a crusade against the world most valuable company, attempting to bite more than he can chew and cutting himself short of the easy cash they were been provided.
IOW: [Nelson Voice] "HAH HAH!!!" [/Nelson Voice].
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Their new HQ? (Score:1)
Ugh, bandcamp to be encrapified (Score:2)
It's going to happen.
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Seriously, this looks like Unity all over again. e.g. a dumbass CEO goes on a buying spree, loses a ton of money from it and has to slash staff because instead of focusing on what they do well tried to do everything and then some.
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Bandcamp turns a profit. Its a no-brainer.
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I think Epic bought Bandcamp for the IP rights, so they have access to a wide music repository. Now once that is accomplished and the deal is done, it can be sold off to someone else.
I just hope the new owners of Bandcamp don't destroy it, because it is one of the rare sites on the Net that is actually useful and gives a win/win/win situation for listeners, musicians, and the site owners.
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Significant revenue sharing (Score:1)
I suppose if they win their fight with Apple, Apple will allow Epic content creators to publish their content on Apple devices without any revenue sharing, and if Epic doesn't like that, they will look rather stupid in court.
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Other way around. Epic sells the mods and takes a cut.
Well I suppose you could see it as creators handing money to epic, but that applies to any thing where a storefront pays its suppliers, but its an odd way of viewing it.
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Well I suppose you could see it as creators handing money to epic, but that applies to any thing where a storefront pays its suppliers, but its an odd way of viewing it.
Well, exactly. Except Epic argues that this is the right way and how it should work when Epic has a storefront, but it is all evil when Apple has a storefront.
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Wait, is Epic against modders having other ways in which users pay them ?
That's the first time I heard of this. Can you show any examples?
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> Wait, is Epic against modders having other ways in which users pay them ?
No, Apple fanbois on the wrong side of morals doing mental gymnastics again.
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Unlike with Apple, you don't have to participate in Epic's revenue sharing, and the revenue Sharing is more Epic sharing its revenue with users, not the other way around like with Apple, where users are forced to share their revenue with Apple at the inflated cost of 30% for a transaction that costs a few cents at most.
Tech Layoffs Are All But A Thing Of The Past (Score:5, Funny)
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rate going down doesn't mean it has disappeared.
Not sure how I can help you to better understand that simple concept...
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Why are you being rude? It was obviously a joke.
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> Not sure how I can help you to better understand that simple concept...
That's the joke. Slashdot posted a dumb headline a few days ago, and we're making fun of them for it. Not sure how I can help you better understand sarcasm.
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Nobody said they're laying off techs. From the looks of it, they get rid of marketing, HR and recruitment, not the productive staff.
Weren't Layoffs a thing of the past? (Score:3)
Shocking! Just yesterday we were told Tech Layoffs Are All But a Thing of the Past [slashdot.org]. /s
So these posts got it right:
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
Were layoffs ever a thing for real? (Score:2)
I hear a lot about layoffs, but I don't really see a lot of it happening. Did any of you get fired in those past 6 months? Hell, do you at least know any tech workers that did?
What I do see is headhunters desperately looking for talent because apparently everyone and their dog is looking for tech people but can't find any.
So how much of this is actually real and how much is FUD?
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People laid off in tech are the "twitter employees" type of tech workers. Utterly unproductive, diversity hires, nepotistic hires, social justice warriors who keep trying to get actually productive people fired, "trust and safety" etc.
If you're a productive worker, chances are you're not getting the axe.
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Ah, the "diversity officer" and their staff.
Can't wait to see that round of layoffs here.
Re: Were layoffs ever a thing for real? (Score:2)
We just lost 10% of our workforce. That means 7500 folks were let go. I lost a team member. I lost a few coworkers from other projects. Two Director level roles were lost. If that is not a thing for real, I have no idea which dreamland you live on.
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Ah, so there were actually people fired.
Anyone productive or just two directors?
Epic (Score:2)
Stop trying to compete with Steam (you can't).
Stop trying to turn gaming into a subscription.
Stop giving away free full-price games every week in order to get people to spend a few seconds on your store.
Put the games you DO want to sell onto every store available (including Steam, etc.), at a small premium if you must.
Then maybe you'll make enough money to pay your staff.
As a gamer with a 20-year-old steam account, I literally only use Epic to claim the free games "in case Steam ever goes down" and I feel l
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Stop trying to compete with Steam (you can't).
Stop trying to turn gaming into a subscription.
Stop giving away free full-price games every week in order to get people to spend a few seconds on your store.
I've said for ages that this whole Epic Games Store thing would fall apart once Fortnite stopped printing money and guess what, Fortnite has stopped printing money and the EGS operation cant support itself.
If you've gotten used to free games on EGS be prepared to kiss them goodbye... If you've bought games on EGS, well sucks to be you.
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Fortnite is still printing money.
Poor strategy (Score:1)
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They did. Part of price fixing is high fees storefronts take. Epic's fee is far lower than Steam's
So even the firing... (Score:2)
...is Epic.
Obligatory "Fixed that for you"... (Score:2)
So let's see if we can suss out what Sweeney really meant to say:
"For a while now, we've been hemorrhaging cash into multiple frivolous lawsuits" ... "I have long been optimistic we could con the courts into seeing our breach of contract as a crusade for the little guys, but in retrospect I see that this was completely deluded, and may well have destroyed our long-term future profitability."
Epic (and Sweeney) needs to stop pretending that they're some kind of altruistic white knight on a mission from God himself. They're just another profiteering company with a product to sell.