Schreier says that Epic is slashing 16% of its workforce

This is a MASSIVE layoff. I wonder if they're shutting down a whole division. My understanding is that Fortnite is still printing money but it's unusual for a company that's doing well to have cuts this deep and sudden. If nothing else it makes it harder to attract future talent.

EDIT:

More detail

Report: Epic Games Cutting 900 Jobs, 16 Percent Of Its Workforce (kotaku.com)

Apparently they were losing money and are selling off divisions. Idiotically they based their business on the idea that Fortnite would keep growing forever, even though that never happens and is basically impossible for a game as huge as Fortnite.

Corporate greed and unrealistic expectations remain undefeated. I wonder if Sweeny was borrowing Square Enix's sales projections guys.

This is insane. I love how Sweeney conspicuously doesn’t mention the quixotic quest against Apple, couldn’t be anything he did, no sir. Mostly I bet this is part of the larger industry trend, and what better time to announce it than when your main competitor spent several weeks shitting the bed?

Now I have to find out what the hell “Songtradr” is, because that’s who Epic is selling Bandcamp to. Fucking hell.

Tim: "Let's build a Steam competitor storefront."

Some c-suite: "I know! Let's get people in the door by giving away games and having exclusive titles."

Tim: "Great idea. Let's do that."

*Years pass. Nothing of note happens to improve the Epic Games Store. Exclusives become fewer and further between. Sale prices are seldom competitive with Steam. Steam puts in massive amounts of work to improve the user experience of their platform while the EGS is basically the same as a few years ago.*

Tim: "Wait, why are people just claiming free games on our platform then doing everything else on Steam? And why aren't these zoomers still obsessed with Fortnite? Oh no. Oh noooooo"

If Fortnite was bringing in $6 billion a year and the Epic Game Store is only bringing in $355 million, I have to imagine the EGS just isn't hitting the way the want it to. This seemed like the thing that was supposed to keep them afloat after Fortnite, but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. Their selling points were always "We have Fortnite", which I can't imagine could see any significant growth going forward, and free games, which probably required a good chunk of that spending they were doing.

@allthedinos said:

i swear to god if bandcamp ends up in acquisition/divestiture death loop, i'm going to be so pissed. though i guess the majority of the blame (should that come to pass) would be laid at the feet of the original owners collecting their check from Epic in 2022.

this timeline where everything comes down to exit strategy (with no mind paid to longevity) truly and completely sucks.

The raw number was bad, but these things happen. Then I saw that it represented an entire SIXTH of the company and I broke my jaw on the floor.

Wow, the article really glosses over how little money the game store makes vs just Fortnite. They should probably kick Tim out and get someone who gives a shit about the actual store.

Unless that big difference is because most Fortnite players aren't on PC?

Bandcamp is the most user-friendly place to buy music and I'm going to be sad if it shuts down someday.

A lot of layoffs and a lot of strikes. This is becoming the story of the 2020s decade. Rough times that is only going to get rougher.

The Epic Game Store never seemed like a good idea to me. You can't beat Steam by just making...another Steam but not as good. People have Steam accounts and libraries and they trust it will stay in business. Giving away free games is fine and all but it doesn't change purchasing behavior because it doesn't actually provide any reason to buy games on your store. It will get people to check it out once and when they do and see it's just worse Steam they bounce.

Microsoft has never been able to get traction against Steam despite having the huge advantage of having their store integrated into the OS and having a big population using Game Pass on PC so using their infrastructure. But even they admitted defeat and put their games on Steam. So has everyone else who has challenged Steam, and even PlayStation.

GOG at least had a gimmick (old games you can't find on Steam) but that's not going so great either.

Humble Bundle's hook was charity, too. Storefronts do tend to succeed by offering something different.

@shindig: Humble just sells Steam keys (at least for 95%+ of their product.) The same with Greenmangaming and a bunch of the other sites. They're resellers but based on the Steam storefront.

There are a few other smaller independent (as in not Steam focused) storefronts that have had success. Itch.io is apparently profitable, but they focus on games so small that they might not have a place on Steam and by offering tiny developers special tools (like unlimited keys etc...)

It's not impossible to build a successful storefront but the Epic Store is just trying to be the Pepsi to Steam's Coke. Except at a much smaller scale, so maybe it's more like RC Cola.

Greedy fucks being greedy fucks.

@bigsocrates: Except RC cola at least has the advantage of coming first, so not even that.

Its hard to get concrete numbers but Fortnite's players seem to have dipped this year, it looks like its star is beginning to wane. Fortnite Live Monthly Player Count

Its probably not helping the Epic Games Store isn't profitable yet, and handing out free games doesn't seem to be working.

I begrudgingly bought a few things on the EGS a few years ago due to exclusivity (Hades, Satisfactory, Ashen, FF7R), but there was an infuriating issue I had with the Unreal Engine games specifically where they would sporadically decide not to launch - seemed like a 60/40 chance of the game actually starting or not. Also, FF7R had a fun 'feature' where, if I added it as Steam shortcut and launched from Steam, it would pop a fun built-in error message giving me shit from not launching it from the EGS.

Fast forward to today and I've long since re-bought all those games on Steam and have closed my Epic account. I have nothing positive to say about that thing. It occupies the same space in my mind as the asshole kid in middle school who's parents bought him a Dreamcastv and everyone hung out with exactly once; you were there for the Dreamcast, not the kid. Eventually you and your friends gained access to a Dreamcast outside of that kid, and he would grow up to be a C-Suite Executive.