…in being the industry’s vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers.
Look, at least a little bit of that is true, but fuck right off.
At least it’s a good severance package. They owe their employees at least that much.
Since it’s a thing now, I should note that the layoffs aren’t related to AI. To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can.
For example, in the U.S., they’ll receive paid coverage for 6 months. We’ll also accelerate their stock options vesting through January 2027 and extend equity exercise options for up to two years.
As much as I hate Epic, those are both better paragraphs than I expected. I feel for the people getting laid off, hopefully they land on their feet
I loved this part of it… “This isn’t our first time being here. Epic survived upheavals in 1990’s with the move from 2D to 3D with Unreal 1; in the 2000’s building console games with Gears of War; and in 2012 moving to online gaming with Paragon and Fortnite. Each time, we rebuilt our foundations and earned a renewed leadership position.”
TLDR “Epic will survive, but your job won’t. So sad.”
This is the moment where Valve should publicly announce they’re not laying people off, because they have enough cash to pay all of their employees by charging a fair 30% of every sale, which makes their business sustainable. Then point to all other platforms that charge 30% and say “they’re not firing anyone either” then get to the only one that charges 12% and say “they’re the only ones losing money on this business by trying to undercut the real cost of doing this business, if they had charged the same 30% as everyone else does they would have enough to keep those employees”. Probably a bullshit argument because Epic surely has enough money to keep them now and it’s just someone looking at a graph and making bullshit decisions, still a very strong point for Valves lawyers to make.
Exactly this. Half of the videos I see about switching to Linux, even if I have never heard the content creator so much as mention fortnite, claim it’s a reason you shouldn’t switch to Linux.
Well, you can’t run this one shitty program popular with twelve year olds so rife with cheating they need kernel level control of your shitty OS to combat it, so no freedom from corporate tyranny for you!
It’s even playable on the phone, so they would not lose complete access to the game. Unless you are really invested into it, it does not matter on what you play. I have a Xbox, so when I wanted to play Fortnite, i would rather play on console than installing Windows on my computer.
It’s all about anticheat support. The game would likely run on a Linux desktop, but Epic chose not to support Linux devices. They officially said (I have no source to link to it at hand) that they don’t believe the anti cheat would work well in Linux, because it lacks root access. On Android on the other hand they have a better sandbox and control. But most importantly, on Android they have a wider audience and that is basically all it counts for them. Epic CEO Tim said, if the Steam Deck gets sold enough, they will consider it.
I’m just listing what has been said, not sharing their same opinion.
How about they stop fucking milking Fortnite and makes something else…
Eh… Epic isn’t really a game development company anymore, Fortnite just happened to pop off before Unreal Engine became the defacto engine for large scale games and CGI in television/movies. They’re gonna keep working on Fortnite but it’s clear their focus is UE6 - I doubt they’re going to make another game ever again.
Especially the ID Tech engine. It was neck and neck with Unreal for popularity before Bethesda bought them and they stopped selling it to third parties.
The partial death of the ID Tech engine was what cemented Unreal as the leader
There weren’t all that many more off-the-shelf engines back then, and as that eroded, it all quite visibly gave way to Unreal. Making your own engine during the 7th gen (over 13 years ago now) was very clearly a way to avoid paying Epic for Unreal, because there already wasn’t much competition at that time.
It’s kind of wild but Fortnite makes (or made?) way more money than UE royalties, like magnitudes more. UE is a boon to the industry to be sure, but somehow 5% of games’ revenue simply isn’t the same as insane people spending money on stupid skins and dances.
Now is UE was used for 20 games as big as Fortnite, they’d be fine but most AAA companies won’t use UE if they expect a huge haul, with a few exceptions of course.
I remember when there was an Unreal Tournament beta in development that they canned the moment ForkKnife popped off. I’m still sour they stole what might have been a great modern follow-up to my beloved UT2004 (UT3 doesn’t count 😠)
Turning Fortnite into Roblox is a major part of the problem. Trying to become the everything game is what stretched them so thin but it came with little payoff
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As much as I hate Epic, those are both better paragraphs than I expected. I feel for the people getting laid off, hopefully they land on their feet
As far as severance goes there certainly worse.
In the US especially. It could be a cardboard box.
Could be a swift punch in the dick.
He could have paid each of the fired employees 100k for 10 years and still have several billion dollars left.
“We’re so sorry to have to lay you off”
wipes tears with fortnite billions
I loved this part of it… “This isn’t our first time being here. Epic survived upheavals in 1990’s with the move from 2D to 3D with Unreal 1; in the 2000’s building console games with Gears of War; and in 2012 moving to online gaming with Paragon and Fortnite. Each time, we rebuilt our foundations and earned a renewed leadership position.”
TLDR “Epic will survive, but your job won’t. So sad.”
This is the moment where Valve should publicly announce they’re not laying people off, because they have enough cash to pay all of their employees by charging a fair 30% of every sale, which makes their business sustainable. Then point to all other platforms that charge 30% and say “they’re not firing anyone either” then get to the only one that charges 12% and say “they’re the only ones losing money on this business by trying to undercut the real cost of doing this business, if they had charged the same 30% as everyone else does they would have enough to keep those employees”. Probably a bullshit argument because Epic surely has enough money to keep them now and it’s just someone looking at a graph and making bullshit decisions, still a very strong point for Valves lawyers to make.
Maybe we get an Overwatch like hero shooter, Fortnite Rivals… But they do not support Linux, therefore I don’t care what happens to Fortnite.
Exactly this. Half of the videos I see about switching to Linux, even if I have never heard the content creator so much as mention fortnite, claim it’s a reason you shouldn’t switch to Linux.
Well, you can’t run this one shitty program popular with twelve year olds so rife with cheating they need kernel level control of your shitty OS to combat it, so no freedom from corporate tyranny for you!
It’s even playable on the phone, so they would not lose complete access to the game. Unless you are really invested into it, it does not matter on what you play. I have a Xbox, so when I wanted to play Fortnite, i would rather play on console than installing Windows on my computer.
How can they have it functional in android but not Linux? That seems counterintuitive to me
It’s all about anticheat support. The game would likely run on a Linux desktop, but Epic chose not to support Linux devices. They officially said (I have no source to link to it at hand) that they don’t believe the anti cheat would work well in Linux, because it lacks root access. On Android on the other hand they have a better sandbox and control. But most importantly, on Android they have a wider audience and that is basically all it counts for them. Epic CEO Tim said, if the Steam Deck gets sold enough, they will consider it.
I’m just listing what has been said, not sharing their same opinion.
1000 layoffs because Fortnite lost popularity? Damn.
How about they stop fucking milking Fortnite and make something else…
SHOCKER!
I’m sorry but KPop Demon Hunter skins? The Weekend?
Eh… Epic isn’t really a game development company anymore, Fortnite just happened to pop off before Unreal Engine became the defacto engine for large scale games and CGI in television/movies. They’re gonna keep working on Fortnite but it’s clear their focus is UE6 - I doubt they’re going to make another game ever again.
Unreal was the defacto engine for large scale games long before Fortnite.
It was pretty popular, but there was way more competition in the PS2/PS3 era, and some studios still made their own engine.
Especially the ID Tech engine. It was neck and neck with Unreal for popularity before Bethesda bought them and they stopped selling it to third parties.
The partial death of the ID Tech engine was what cemented Unreal as the leader
There weren’t all that many more off-the-shelf engines back then, and as that eroded, it all quite visibly gave way to Unreal. Making your own engine during the 7th gen (over 13 years ago now) was very clearly a way to avoid paying Epic for Unreal, because there already wasn’t much competition at that time.
It’s kind of wild but Fortnite makes (or made?) way more money than UE royalties, like magnitudes more. UE is a boon to the industry to be sure, but somehow 5% of games’ revenue simply isn’t the same as insane people spending money on stupid skins and dances.
Now is UE was used for 20 games as big as Fortnite, they’d be fine but most AAA companies won’t use UE if they expect a huge haul, with a few exceptions of course.
Fortnite 2
And thus the monkey paw curls.
I remember when there was an Unreal Tournament beta in development that they canned the moment ForkKnife popped off. I’m still sour they stole what might have been a great modern follow-up to my beloved UT2004 (UT3 doesn’t count 😠)
Turning Fortnite into Roblox is a major part of the problem. Trying to become the everything game is what stretched them so thin but it came with little payoff
Layoffs going around today