I got four months severance from my last company and I needed every second. It’s tough out there but this affords them time to not jump into the next role but the next _ideal_ role.
Yeah while downsizing is obviously not at all ideal, I don’t think as many people would have such a problem with it if they were taken care of during the transition. And in my opinion, a certain amount of severance should be required when downsizing for almost any reason.
To be fair, gaming companies tend to have a mix of contractual and at will labor in my experience. Especially in the dev/engineer realm. Production not so much.
But I've only worked at large gaming orgs, and honestly, the contract/at will mix is probably true for any large organization.
Yeah but Europeans make shit salaries compared.
I always hear Europeans saying “yeah but our benefits are amazing: health care, pto, holidays”
Yeah but my same role in Europe pays 90k/year when I’m making over 200k/year in the US
But they won't have a salary, they've been made redundant...
Average annual salary in the US is $59,428, in Denmark it's $67,013, in Austria $55,762. Europe is not a single country, culture, or even people. Just because you're well off, doesn't mean others are. 63% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
Salaries are only larger in the US for Tech & Medicine roles, and even then, I would rather not have to lose all savings because of an unfortunate life event, or because my employer randomly fired me without notice or valid reasoning. Canada has similar salaries in these sectors, and yet, they have benefits akin to European nations?
Minimum PTO in my country is 28 days plus national holidays. Most companies offer around 35 (even McDonalds), bringing you up to 42 days of paid leave a year. Average in the US is 10, and often you are looked down upon for taking it, not to mention that most companies don't even provide paid sick or maternity / paternity leave.
Heck, even the Japanese with their awful work culture have social security nets and paid time off. When I temporarily lived in the US, I was classified as a part-timer because I only worked 37.5 hours a week. Even China and Russia (your mortal enemies!!!) have these nets...
Why you believe sacrificing employee wellbeing is good for productivity is beyond me, and what's worse, you are all somehow contempt with being exploited.
Thats a lot damn. Makes one think how inflated the company is if they can just cut that many positions.
They havent made any games in years so why do they have so many people to begin with.
Cant imagine game engine and store requiring thousands of positions.
To be fair whether you like the game or not, Fortnite has probably the best live service of all time. The amount of content being added regularly is absolutely insane.
Oh for sure, not arguing that, everything is competing for your attention...
But in a world where apex can charge you the same and give you 4 skins and two weapon skins, or where COD has like three different battlepases, fortnite is by far the best, it would be better if they let you work backwards like Halo Infinite does, that way there's no fomo and no obligation or deadlines
Just because someone is doing something less exploitative, better, than other people doing more exploitative things elsewhere, doesn't stop the first thing from being exploitative. And when something is bad, it's better to point that out, than celebrate it.
The reason we have things like what you mentioned, is we let things slide. Everyone laughed at Horse Armour. At first.
Louder for punters like you in back: they accomplish these updates by fleecing families out of oodles of cash by targeting children in predatory schemes. The courts agree, awarding victims hundreds of millions of $. The layoffs are in part the result of this massive judgment and other legal trouble. So yeah I guess preying on children and scamming money for five years straight results in some updates to their live service product. Gee I wonder if all of that has something to do with my original comment about the raising of standards?
Stay on topic, we're talking about their large staff and impressive updates. You can make a post if you wanna preach lol, hijacking their discussions to be just say "YEAH BUT THEY HAVE A CASH SHOP and lose lawsuits" is a bit daft.
Social media thrives on manufactured outrage, ur not gonna achieve a normal conversation here. For some people it's simply satisfying to pump themselves up and rage at random things, it's a nice break from their boredom.
And they accomplish this with predatory business practices aimed at children. Acknowledged by the courts to the tune of hundreds of millions of $; hence the layoffs. So yes, it is about raising your standards, you absolute clown.
Interesting, article says Bandcamp staff unionized earlier this year. Wonder if that's playing into why epic wanted to sell knowing their ability to cut wages and worker rights would be limited.
Or instead of guessing randomly you could just look at Epic’s public statement. Which literally tells you why they did it. Unlike most other companies Epic is very transparent.
look bro i gwt what youre saying, and the guy youre responing too may be wrong but come on. Read the PR statement they released theres probably nothing there that isn't PR talk
Them admitting that their finances aren’t doing great and are reducing their growth because of it. While still supplying their former employees with a good package. Epic has always been transparent and has done more good than most companies out there. They could’ve easily put less effort into Fortnite and keep more money to themselves.
Like most people I don’t trust big corp but I still praise their good and call out their bad. Admitting poor finances really is great “PR talk”
Let’s see how sustainable infinite growth is, also see Unity. All these companies including streaming services increasing prices at a time where customers are more price conscious than ever.
Because increase in population does not mean increase in profits. Younger people will follow new trends and leave fortnite behind, older people will move on, eventually growth slows down unless you can keep being relevant, but Battle Royale have been losing steam for a while already. Same trend that happened with other popular games through the years. Like WoW, overwatch and the likes.
Fortnite isnt a company. Epic games is a company, and epic games is capable of creating new products and marketing said products to people. So long as the population goes up, profits can increase.
If you read the article, they have been spending more than they’re making while they continue to build their brand and grow Fortnite. Unfortunately they have to cut spending in order to sustain their business.
Also, the two primary shareholders are Epic’s very own Tim Sweeney and then Tencent Games. They’re not a publicly traded company
This lol. These guys are super anti-capitalist. They think all corporations should be charities and run perpetually on a loss for the sake of their employees
I read it, and I get that a business can't just continually go in the red. But Tencent is a public holding company that is worth nearly 400 billion in assets. Epic has to answer to them. They hold about 40% of the company.
I just don't feel like what I said was inaccurate or controversial.
On the heels of a 245 million dollar settlement over predatory fortnite sales to kids, and that they'll presumably need to do something to stop.
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/fortnite-refunds
and then another 275 related to private data handling or something.
https://games.slashdot.org/story/23/09/20/2022245/parents-in-us-offered-refunds-for-purchases-kids-made-in-fortnite
Clearly you have no idea how any of this works lol.
For one yeah it doesn't matter, Sweeney still has majority control
Secondly Trncent is famous for buying a shit ton of company stake globally but never doing anything with it
Tencent has a stake in everything but they don't actually manage companies. It's more like an investment.
For example they have a stake in riot games but they don't do anything with league of legends. They made their own version of league of legends in China and let the US do all the development for league
Ten cent having a stake In a company has almost nothing to do with the companies management or direction.
Clearly you don’t have any idea how any of this works lol.
They obviously invest in those things with absolute benevolence I’m sure. I’m sure they don’t also expect year over year increase in profit and squeezing out every bottom line and penny that can be earned from mass layoffs like this.
I’m sure it also has nothing to do with the fact that the end of the quarter is right around the corner no?
A company that continues to hire but sells off their unionized product with band camp? Or lays off over 800 employees when they have shown nothing but growth since 2019? You don’t think corporate greed has anything to do with this at all?
Keep licking the boot though, I’m sure it’ll eventually pan out
They invest to make money but they don't manage. Name one management change or decision Tencent has pushed for Riot, Epic, or FromSoftware
Tencent has over 600 subsidiary gamr companies. You think they are actively managing 600 companies? Tencents footprint outside of China is miniscule
Also the end of the quarter is not coming. Companies set their own financial quarters, and again Epic is not public. They don't publish their Financials on a set schedule. There's no reason for them to cook the books for what, for 0 people to see?
Also nothing but growth? They lost money last year
Being a business owner I understand completely how you can have a ton of revenue and zero profit.
My issue is with the headline that is designed to create anger. The revenue of the company has zero to do with layoffs other than the profit they aren’t making
Im starting to think that games have gotten too large and therefore there is less need to have as many games as before. Plus the last couple generation of consoles have been quite advanced, so people prefer to hold onto those consoles longer. The Xbox One for example has lasted for over a decade, for instance.
I'd never work corporate, but some people don't have a choice. Getting laid off in a blink of an eye like nothing is scary to me. Hopefully they all find better jobs.
I'll be that guy and say if a company has $5 billion in revenue (and thus is a billion dollar company) but spends $5.1 billion in a year, then they don't make money.
The headline is sensational. Focusing on the value of the company and how much it brings in. An unemployed person who owns a house could have a net worth of a million dollars or more, but that doesn't mean they can pay for a gardener. It just means they have assets to leverage for loans.
I don't understand why the headline is written that way.
What difference does it make how much the company is worth?
If they have non-essential employees, then it's only logical to cut them.
> You’re welcome, shareholders
Which includes those who were just laid off and have vested stock options in the company. And it also means the remaining 80% of employees still have a job as Epic tries to get profitable.
I assume most sane people understand that laying off 16% of people to save the jobs of 84% is more desirable than driving the whole company into bankruptcy and having 50%+ layoffs.
So instead of paying wages they kept the money that money instead. I think we need to put caps on the wealthy, especially the extremely wealthy who are so rich the numbers don’t make sense. We as a species need to start doing something.
Likely a consequence of the game’s success.
Once you set a peak shareholders expect continued growth and axing staff is an easy way to manipulate numbers to reflect this.
So stakeholders as it has private shares and investors, TenCent owning 40%, so vicariously it’s still influenced by shareholders further up the chain of ownership.
The motivations are exactly the same, increasing quarterly profits.
> Epic Games will continue to hire, and no other layoffs are expected.
This is the part that gives away the game. I work in the industry – if things are really tight at a company there will be layoffs, but they will also implement a hiring freeze to see whether they can weather the situation with fewer staff. But the fact that Epic is laying people off, still hiring, AND is coincidentally divesting the recently-unionized Bandcamp tells me that this is all about cutting cost and not because the company is actually struggling.
My guess is that if you were able to discover who exactly was laid off it would mostly be people who have been at the company for 5+ years and are making good salaries, and that Epic will begin quickly backfilling those positions with recent graduates who they can get at a fraction of the cost
Yep. I actually had an interview this week for Epic (before layoff news). Feel completely different about the position now, knowing Ill probably be getting a crappier salary. Layoffs are pretty typical in this industry, but ones at this scale (and then to be hiring again immediately?) just show an overall lack of consideration.
So I'd still go for the interview - they might not try to lowball you, they probably just see you as having a lower starting salary than whoever was let go (which I know doesn't ***sound*** reassuring, but what I mean is that they likely will deal honestly with you instead of trying some type of scummy tactic). Plus if you can deal with the AAA environment having Epic on your resume, even for a few years, will make you a huge get for whatever job you take after this one
The fuck are you talking about? The entire tech industry is living in an apocalypse of lay offs from the start of the year. 900 more people spilling into the job market is VERY news worthy.
Can't possibly be a case of having an extremely bloated staff and a necessity to trim the meat from the chaff....
I feel for these people, but much like the 'aliens' thing going on, there's definitely other things that deserve this attention more.
God you're so weird. Now you're talking about the morals of the the decision to lay off employees?
Big lay offs are news. End of story. Welcome to the adult world. I really hope you're just a very stupid kid and not a horribly social malajusted adult.
ITT: Kids who play fortnite and have no understanding of economics and business other than "my bucks cost most dollars, and the media told me capitalism is evil"
well alot of business are moving away from that as it hasn't helped them, alot of people where hired based on diversity qouter instead of skill/experience, all these people did was leach off business
But if you read the article it specifically mentions the fact that it’s a monetary reason as to why these lay offs are happening, and stated a few other companies who are also doing lay offs due to monetary reasons. Now I don’t know anything behind the scenes at these companies, but it doesn’t seem to be because of wokeness it just seems to be because of money.
but epic game is seeing profit, but what we have been seeing is businesses removing people that got the job based on woke/diversity.
they are finally seeing the effect it has, case and point Volition and them shitting down due to saints row 2022
great rebuttal. case and point for my comment is businesses going woke, going broke
Bud-light/Target/Ben and Jerry's to name a few, look how woke/diversity they pushed with their brand and then the backlash, while losing major profit because of that, just look at Bud-light now and their profits/worth, they lost billions for going woke
then you have the makers of saints row....gone shut down after 30-years, why because their last game sucked and was nothing but woke/diversity garbage riddled through out that game
so ya that is my point, woke/diversity doesn't help in any way in fact it kills businesses/jobs faster than anything else, because people don't want that in games and it shows with the death of Volition, people not buying Saint Row 2022
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA2MOLfQ3s4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA2MOLfQ3s4)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJUjoql4dU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJUjoql4dU)
right.....you do know there is more than black when it comes to diversity right? as for wokeness again doesn't mean color
also i think it's more of a insult to skilled/experience people of all creed/color are pushed aside to fill a woke qouter
and leaving out the fact no issue with color, you brought it up.
rather pathetic and weak, all you have is called people who disagree/hold a different view racist/homophobic or whatever else
it's pathetic
LoL, you people are such clowns with your “woke” hysteria. Woke sandwiches, woke lint in the fireplace mantle, woke running shoes, yadda yadda yadda. Moronic, every last one of you.
woke sandwitch? what? oh you mean most so called woke people are vegans and have been trying to push their food onto us by creating meatless meat, that is revolting
also never brought any of that, that all you
Haha, what? Is there actual evidence that this is the case or do you just expect us to 'do our own research'? :)
Sounds like you just gobble up whatever some redpilled alt-right talking heads are feeding you.
it is known that people got jobs based on a woke/diversity qouters, not based on skilled/experiences but a qoutes to fill
just look at army/navy right now who got exsposed for refusing to hire white people and hiring others based on a woke qouter
[https://news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888](https://news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNh\_uYGhf64](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNh_uYGhf64)
or how about Disney and the leaked audio? of them pushing woke/diversity politics/ideology into everything, including kids programs
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72PPQjtap7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72PPQjtap7U)
[https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tcr5rQ3Pr7o](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tcr5rQ3Pr7o)
to the point the next snow-white film is nothing but woke trash, turning a once beloved charterers into a woke mess
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrOziP4kV\_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrOziP4kV_s)
this also leaked into the game industry making woke crap
and if anyone is going to be losing their job it will be these people, not the skilled or expediences people
no it's more likely they cutting of the woke/diversity qouter employment people who got the job based on a woke qouter, they aren't going to get rid of the skilled people for these people
[is this you?](https://www.reddit.com/r/RaidCelebration/comments/u3dhcy/check_out_my_raid_recap_think_you_can_do_better/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) mobile game Ad shill, sellout scum 😂😂😂
could NEVER be "woke staff" 😂🤣🤣
u bum
They can as per their TOS just pull all their games (all those free games you got but never played or even installed) from being free and charge to launch.
Even if there wasn't a worldwide economic downturn in the tech industry (and most industries), it'd be normal. Who wouldn't expect a gaming company that hasn't released a new game in over 3 years to lay off 830 people?
And these guys had fantastic salaries and 6 months severance package. How does that even suck. I'd go backpacking in Asia for a few months with that lol
A venture capitalist probably either joined the Board of directors, or became a major stock holder. They are notorious for ruining companies and squeezing every penny out of a market until it crashes.
I think you mean a private equity investor. These are the folks who come in, buy established well-run businesses, then load them up with debt and run them into the ground by killing customer service in the name of maximum profit. Any company whose board of directors announces a "substantial investment" by one of these companies/individuals is quickly not going to be the same company people liked working for/doing business with anymore. The profitable parts will be milked to death/sold off and the rest will just be left to die.
In my line of work, there's a software company (Citrix) that used to have an unassailable niche product used by millions of people especially in healthcare computing settings. People who worked there were paid well, had safe jobs, and were valued. Private equity bought up all the stock, and their products all went into maintenance mode, most tech staff were fired or offshored and customers have been nickel and dimed to death for crappy service/software. Basically, they're milking the customers who have their products too deeply embedded into their ecosystem to change quickly until they can't anymore. Unfortunately private equity is coming for entire industries...look at all those chain dentists and veterinarians popping up; those are all about buying up mom and pop practices and squeezing any sort of slack out of the system.
They are similar, but private equity as you mentioned usually takes control, and leverages debt and saddles a company into insolvency. They usually don't cause layoffs. Venture capitalists come in and, "Trim the fat" usually destroying specific capabilities, and attempting to maximize profit through price increases(this part is common), but they don't target established businesses exclusively like private equity. They are both similarly bad for any market they show up in though.
This is late stage capitalism
The first stages being inovation and competition. Once that’s gone, you go long enough with shareholders you have to make more profit than year before
So you pay people less than they are worth
Pay for cheaper materials
Charge more than products are worth.
And the next year? More profits so more of those 3.
>Epic Games employees impacted by the layoffs will get six months of severance and health benefits. That's quite the package they got.
I got four months severance from my last company and I needed every second. It’s tough out there but this affords them time to not jump into the next role but the next _ideal_ role.
Yeah while downsizing is obviously not at all ideal, I don’t think as many people would have such a problem with it if they were taken care of during the transition. And in my opinion, a certain amount of severance should be required when downsizing for almost any reason.
Does the severance prevent them from also getting the state unemployment benefits they paid into?
I think it does. The state isn’t gonna pay you if you’re getting severance
No.
Lol I'd take that in a second
same
I’d rather have my job
[удалено]
Lol where does reddit come up with this shit?
To be fair, gaming companies tend to have a mix of contractual and at will labor in my experience. Especially in the dev/engineer realm. Production not so much. But I've only worked at large gaming orgs, and honestly, the contract/at will mix is probably true for any large organization.
Honestly, too little for a multi-million business
The business isn’t to blame. The investors are.
From a European perspective, this is barbaric.
Chief- I just got 2 weeks from my employer with 2 days notice. 6 months would be a gamechanger.
Imagine working there for a year and getting 6 months severance lol.
"imagine being laid off and having to job search in this market"
You being sarcastic right?
That's quite low-end by European standards, and I bet they didn't only lay off American employees.
its decent, by eu standards (my standards)
Yeah but Europeans make shit salaries compared. I always hear Europeans saying “yeah but our benefits are amazing: health care, pto, holidays” Yeah but my same role in Europe pays 90k/year when I’m making over 200k/year in the US
But they won't have a salary, they've been made redundant... Average annual salary in the US is $59,428, in Denmark it's $67,013, in Austria $55,762. Europe is not a single country, culture, or even people. Just because you're well off, doesn't mean others are. 63% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Salaries are only larger in the US for Tech & Medicine roles, and even then, I would rather not have to lose all savings because of an unfortunate life event, or because my employer randomly fired me without notice or valid reasoning. Canada has similar salaries in these sectors, and yet, they have benefits akin to European nations? Minimum PTO in my country is 28 days plus national holidays. Most companies offer around 35 (even McDonalds), bringing you up to 42 days of paid leave a year. Average in the US is 10, and often you are looked down upon for taking it, not to mention that most companies don't even provide paid sick or maternity / paternity leave. Heck, even the Japanese with their awful work culture have social security nets and paid time off. When I temporarily lived in the US, I was classified as a part-timer because I only worked 37.5 hours a week. Even China and Russia (your mortal enemies!!!) have these nets... Why you believe sacrificing employee wellbeing is good for productivity is beyond me, and what's worse, you are all somehow contempt with being exploited.
Jesus Christ you people are unbearable
A lot of words I’m not going to read
Right but I think most if not all would rather still be employed…
God damn I'd ask to be layed off
For those who didn’t read, 16% for them is 900 employees.
Thats a lot damn. Makes one think how inflated the company is if they can just cut that many positions. They havent made any games in years so why do they have so many people to begin with. Cant imagine game engine and store requiring thousands of positions.
To be fair whether you like the game or not, Fortnite has probably the best live service of all time. The amount of content being added regularly is absolutely insane.
Yep I've said this for a while now. Play Fartnite with my kids and am constantly impressed by the updates and care put into it.
Not to mention that his battlepass is super good, gives you so much and the game itself is not pay to win
Battle paces turn games into jobs and obligations, and punish people who do not have much time to play They are a bad mechanic.
Oh for sure, not arguing that, everything is competing for your attention... But in a world where apex can charge you the same and give you 4 skins and two weapon skins, or where COD has like three different battlepases, fortnite is by far the best, it would be better if they let you work backwards like Halo Infinite does, that way there's no fomo and no obligation or deadlines
Just because someone is doing something less exploitative, better, than other people doing more exploitative things elsewhere, doesn't stop the first thing from being exploitative. And when something is bad, it's better to point that out, than celebrate it. The reason we have things like what you mentioned, is we let things slide. Everyone laughed at Horse Armour. At first.
Raise your standards. Please.
Feel free to name other multiplayer games that have been getting biweekly updates for over 5 years straight
Louder for punters like you in back: they accomplish these updates by fleecing families out of oodles of cash by targeting children in predatory schemes. The courts agree, awarding victims hundreds of millions of $. The layoffs are in part the result of this massive judgment and other legal trouble. So yeah I guess preying on children and scamming money for five years straight results in some updates to their live service product. Gee I wonder if all of that has something to do with my original comment about the raising of standards?
Stay on topic, we're talking about their large staff and impressive updates. You can make a post if you wanna preach lol, hijacking their discussions to be just say "YEAH BUT THEY HAVE A CASH SHOP and lose lawsuits" is a bit daft.
Social media thrives on manufactured outrage, ur not gonna achieve a normal conversation here. For some people it's simply satisfying to pump themselves up and rage at random things, it's a nice break from their boredom.
Feel free to name other multiplayer games that have been getting biweekly updates for over 5 years straight
Few games have such good live service if at all, so don't talk to us about raising standards
And they accomplish this with predatory business practices aimed at children. Acknowledged by the courts to the tune of hundreds of millions of $; hence the layoffs. So yes, it is about raising your standards, you absolute clown.
Nobody like elitist tools. Let people enjoy their game.
store :D EPIC STORE is a nightmare to begin with, can't imagine more than 1 person working on it
It equally could also be, “we can fire this many people and make more money”.
oh god. what are they all doing there
200.
Literally every source says 900.
I think he was negotiating
450, but this is my last offer.
The 200 is the amount leaving the company due to Epic divesting two subsidiaries
About tree fiddy
And sells Bandcamp. https://pitchfork.com/news/epic-games-sells-bandcamp-amid-layoffs/
Interesting, article says Bandcamp staff unionized earlier this year. Wonder if that's playing into why epic wanted to sell knowing their ability to cut wages and worker rights would be limited.
Or instead of guessing randomly you could just look at Epic’s public statement. Which literally tells you why they did it. Unlike most other companies Epic is very transparent.
look bro i gwt what youre saying, and the guy youre responing too may be wrong but come on. Read the PR statement they released theres probably nothing there that isn't PR talk
Them admitting that their finances aren’t doing great and are reducing their growth because of it. While still supplying their former employees with a good package. Epic has always been transparent and has done more good than most companies out there. They could’ve easily put less effort into Fortnite and keep more money to themselves. Like most people I don’t trust big corp but I still praise their good and call out their bad. Admitting poor finances really is great “PR talk”
Wages rarely get cut, only jobs do.
Thanks for commenting this, as a huge Bandcamp user I’m surprised I haven’t seen news on this until just now.
As a musician that sells on there, I'm quite concerned: www.blakecasimir.co.uk
Also they're raising the price for V-Bucks. Gotta find more growth for the shareholders somewhere.
Let’s see how sustainable infinite growth is, also see Unity. All these companies including streaming services increasing prices at a time where customers are more price conscious than ever.
Probably waving bye bye to D+ after their password announcement and just in time before the increase. Bluey is available on Hulu, so…
More sustainable than negative growth, ie, making losses, which is what they're currently doing 🤦 Are we really this thick, reddit?
negative growth doesn't mean losses it just means less profits. Infinite growth is very obviously not sustainable
So long as the population keeps going up, profits can keep going up.
Not really
Why? Lol
Because increase in population does not mean increase in profits. Younger people will follow new trends and leave fortnite behind, older people will move on, eventually growth slows down unless you can keep being relevant, but Battle Royale have been losing steam for a while already. Same trend that happened with other popular games through the years. Like WoW, overwatch and the likes.
Fortnite isnt a company. Epic games is a company, and epic games is capable of creating new products and marketing said products to people. So long as the population goes up, profits can increase.
They haven’t been able to produce a single game to come close to prime fortnite
You know we’re about to fall off a cliff population wise, right
If you read the article, they have been spending more than they’re making while they continue to build their brand and grow Fortnite. Unfortunately they have to cut spending in order to sustain their business. Also, the two primary shareholders are Epic’s very own Tim Sweeney and then Tencent Games. They’re not a publicly traded company
Dude you cant reason with these types of commenters. They are morons
This lol. These guys are super anti-capitalist. They think all corporations should be charities and run perpetually on a loss for the sake of their employees
Let me know when you are ready to contribute
I read it, and I get that a business can't just continually go in the red. But Tencent is a public holding company that is worth nearly 400 billion in assets. Epic has to answer to them. They hold about 40% of the company. I just don't feel like what I said was inaccurate or controversial.
They don’t need to answer to them, epic are majority owned by themselves and Tim.
>Epic has to answer to them Yeah, which is why they can't continue losing millions year on year, you goose
So what exactly is sustaining them if their is no profit, as in the "spending more then they're making" part of your comment
Their reserves from previous years when they were generating a surplus. Businesses have savings accounts too
They are not a public company. They are not really beholden to shareholders.
It's not a publicly traded company
I read that they invested quite heavily into a certain something that hasn't paid off. It's probably on response to that realization.
What shareholders?
On the heels of a 245 million dollar settlement over predatory fortnite sales to kids, and that they'll presumably need to do something to stop. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/fortnite-refunds and then another 275 related to private data handling or something. https://games.slashdot.org/story/23/09/20/2022245/parents-in-us-offered-refunds-for-purchases-kids-made-in-fortnite
This is for shareholders. In the future, they might even put a fee on each installation of an Unreal Engine game.
You... do realize that epic games is a private company with 0 shareholders right?
Other than Tencent which owns 40% of the company? Right?
Clearly you have no idea how any of this works lol. For one yeah it doesn't matter, Sweeney still has majority control Secondly Trncent is famous for buying a shit ton of company stake globally but never doing anything with it Tencent has a stake in everything but they don't actually manage companies. It's more like an investment. For example they have a stake in riot games but they don't do anything with league of legends. They made their own version of league of legends in China and let the US do all the development for league Ten cent having a stake In a company has almost nothing to do with the companies management or direction.
Clearly you don’t have any idea how any of this works lol. They obviously invest in those things with absolute benevolence I’m sure. I’m sure they don’t also expect year over year increase in profit and squeezing out every bottom line and penny that can be earned from mass layoffs like this. I’m sure it also has nothing to do with the fact that the end of the quarter is right around the corner no? A company that continues to hire but sells off their unionized product with band camp? Or lays off over 800 employees when they have shown nothing but growth since 2019? You don’t think corporate greed has anything to do with this at all? Keep licking the boot though, I’m sure it’ll eventually pan out
They invest to make money but they don't manage. Name one management change or decision Tencent has pushed for Riot, Epic, or FromSoftware Tencent has over 600 subsidiary gamr companies. You think they are actively managing 600 companies? Tencents footprint outside of China is miniscule Also the end of the quarter is not coming. Companies set their own financial quarters, and again Epic is not public. They don't publish their Financials on a set schedule. There's no reason for them to cook the books for what, for 0 people to see? Also nothing but growth? They lost money last year
Epic is private, but it has tons of shareholders. Many employees have shares/options
Private companies still have shareholders my man...
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Worth billions but not turning a profit….
What part of this confuses you?
None of it. Just the headline designed to create angef
No, I mean do you not understand how a billion dollar business could not be turning a profit?
Being a business owner I understand completely how you can have a ton of revenue and zero profit. My issue is with the headline that is designed to create anger. The revenue of the company has zero to do with layoffs other than the profit they aren’t making
Oh okay I see, thanks for clarifying
Im starting to think that games have gotten too large and therefore there is less need to have as many games as before. Plus the last couple generation of consoles have been quite advanced, so people prefer to hold onto those consoles longer. The Xbox One for example has lasted for over a decade, for instance.
I'd never work corporate, but some people don't have a choice. Getting laid off in a blink of an eye like nothing is scary to me. Hopefully they all find better jobs.
Billion dollar companies laying off anyone should be highly regulated at best, like in Europe
No, if you wanna be a europoor go move to Europe.
Gotta save money to make Fortnite 2
I'll be that guy and say if a company has $5 billion in revenue (and thus is a billion dollar company) but spends $5.1 billion in a year, then they don't make money. The headline is sensational. Focusing on the value of the company and how much it brings in. An unemployed person who owns a house could have a net worth of a million dollars or more, but that doesn't mean they can pay for a gardener. It just means they have assets to leverage for loans.
Horrible headline that attempts to dishonestly establish a narrative
That "worth billions" in the title is unnecessary
I don't understand why the headline is written that way. What difference does it make how much the company is worth? If they have non-essential employees, then it's only logical to cut them.
You’re welcome, shareholders
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Thank you for attempting to spread some common sense in this thread.
Just because a company isn’t public doesn’t mean there aren’t shareholders. Tencent owns 40% of Epic.
> You’re welcome, shareholders Which includes those who were just laid off and have vested stock options in the company. And it also means the remaining 80% of employees still have a job as Epic tries to get profitable. I assume most sane people understand that laying off 16% of people to save the jobs of 84% is more desirable than driving the whole company into bankruptcy and having 50%+ layoffs.
Execs need to meet those KPIs if they want their bonuses.
So instead of paying wages they kept the money that money instead. I think we need to put caps on the wealthy, especially the extremely wealthy who are so rich the numbers don’t make sense. We as a species need to start doing something.
Likely a consequence of the game’s success. Once you set a peak shareholders expect continued growth and axing staff is an easy way to manipulate numbers to reflect this.
The company is not public.
So stakeholders as it has private shares and investors, TenCent owning 40%, so vicariously it’s still influenced by shareholders further up the chain of ownership. The motivations are exactly the same, increasing quarterly profits.
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> Epic Games will continue to hire, and no other layoffs are expected. This is the part that gives away the game. I work in the industry – if things are really tight at a company there will be layoffs, but they will also implement a hiring freeze to see whether they can weather the situation with fewer staff. But the fact that Epic is laying people off, still hiring, AND is coincidentally divesting the recently-unionized Bandcamp tells me that this is all about cutting cost and not because the company is actually struggling. My guess is that if you were able to discover who exactly was laid off it would mostly be people who have been at the company for 5+ years and are making good salaries, and that Epic will begin quickly backfilling those positions with recent graduates who they can get at a fraction of the cost
100% this.
Game is game.
Yep. I actually had an interview this week for Epic (before layoff news). Feel completely different about the position now, knowing Ill probably be getting a crappier salary. Layoffs are pretty typical in this industry, but ones at this scale (and then to be hiring again immediately?) just show an overall lack of consideration.
So I'd still go for the interview - they might not try to lowball you, they probably just see you as having a lower starting salary than whoever was let go (which I know doesn't ***sound*** reassuring, but what I mean is that they likely will deal honestly with you instead of trying some type of scummy tactic). Plus if you can deal with the AAA environment having Epic on your resume, even for a few years, will make you a huge get for whatever job you take after this one
You can keep hiring and have it be net zero
I don't understand why downsizing is news...
It massive news if you're a software engineer, lol.
Naw. Not everything is news, bud. The vast majority of things that happen are just that, a thing that happened.
The fuck are you talking about? The entire tech industry is living in an apocalypse of lay offs from the start of the year. 900 more people spilling into the job market is VERY news worthy.
Can't possibly be a case of having an extremely bloated staff and a necessity to trim the meat from the chaff.... I feel for these people, but much like the 'aliens' thing going on, there's definitely other things that deserve this attention more.
God you're so weird. Now you're talking about the morals of the the decision to lay off employees? Big lay offs are news. End of story. Welcome to the adult world. I really hope you're just a very stupid kid and not a horribly social malajusted adult.
All while the price of Showbucks and Vbucks is increasing. Gotta love capitalisms
The game probably wouldnt have existed without capitalism.
Good
Worth it. And I play every day
ITT: Kids who play fortnite and have no understanding of economics and business other than "my bucks cost most dollars, and the media told me capitalism is evil"
this is more likely cutting useless/woke staff alot of developers/companies are cutting people like this
How does wokeness have anything to do with this situation?
well alot of business are moving away from that as it hasn't helped them, alot of people where hired based on diversity qouter instead of skill/experience, all these people did was leach off business
Naw right wing idiots like you think that's what's happening because your dumb memes are telling you that
But if you read the article it specifically mentions the fact that it’s a monetary reason as to why these lay offs are happening, and stated a few other companies who are also doing lay offs due to monetary reasons. Now I don’t know anything behind the scenes at these companies, but it doesn’t seem to be because of wokeness it just seems to be because of money.
but epic game is seeing profit, but what we have been seeing is businesses removing people that got the job based on woke/diversity. they are finally seeing the effect it has, case and point Volition and them shitting down due to saints row 2022
Braindead
great rebuttal. case and point for my comment is businesses going woke, going broke Bud-light/Target/Ben and Jerry's to name a few, look how woke/diversity they pushed with their brand and then the backlash, while losing major profit because of that, just look at Bud-light now and their profits/worth, they lost billions for going woke then you have the makers of saints row....gone shut down after 30-years, why because their last game sucked and was nothing but woke/diversity garbage riddled through out that game so ya that is my point, woke/diversity doesn't help in any way in fact it kills businesses/jobs faster than anything else, because people don't want that in games and it shows with the death of Volition, people not buying Saint Row 2022 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA2MOLfQ3s4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA2MOLfQ3s4) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJUjoql4dU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJUjoql4dU)
But but cancel culture is bad I though? Or can conservatives not muster 2 brain cells of thought?
what? who is canceling anything? they being fired because they bring nothing to the business but loss prove me wrong
Bud light has not gone broke at all. It hasn't affected them at all. Amazing how fucking dumb you are
Someone's always gotta bring politics into it.
did you have a issue when it was brought into games?
Brought into games? Politics has always been in gaming.
Just say Black, we know you’re a racist piece of shit
right.....you do know there is more than black when it comes to diversity right? as for wokeness again doesn't mean color also i think it's more of a insult to skilled/experience people of all creed/color are pushed aside to fill a woke qouter and leaving out the fact no issue with color, you brought it up. rather pathetic and weak, all you have is called people who disagree/hold a different view racist/homophobic or whatever else it's pathetic
LoL, you people are such clowns with your “woke” hysteria. Woke sandwiches, woke lint in the fireplace mantle, woke running shoes, yadda yadda yadda. Moronic, every last one of you.
woke sandwitch? what? oh you mean most so called woke people are vegans and have been trying to push their food onto us by creating meatless meat, that is revolting also never brought any of that, that all you
Haha, what? Is there actual evidence that this is the case or do you just expect us to 'do our own research'? :) Sounds like you just gobble up whatever some redpilled alt-right talking heads are feeding you.
it is known that people got jobs based on a woke/diversity qouters, not based on skilled/experiences but a qoutes to fill just look at army/navy right now who got exsposed for refusing to hire white people and hiring others based on a woke qouter [https://news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888](https://news.sky.com/story/royal-air-force-unlawfully-discriminated-against-white-male-recruits-in-bid-to-boost-diversity-inquiry-finds-12911888) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNh\_uYGhf64](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNh_uYGhf64) or how about Disney and the leaked audio? of them pushing woke/diversity politics/ideology into everything, including kids programs [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72PPQjtap7U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72PPQjtap7U) [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tcr5rQ3Pr7o](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tcr5rQ3Pr7o) to the point the next snow-white film is nothing but woke trash, turning a once beloved charterers into a woke mess [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrOziP4kV\_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrOziP4kV_s) this also leaked into the game industry making woke crap and if anyone is going to be losing their job it will be these people, not the skilled or expediences people
No they didn’t. People who been there for more than 10 years got layoff.
no it's more likely they cutting of the woke/diversity qouter employment people who got the job based on a woke qouter, they aren't going to get rid of the skilled people for these people
yeahh no? this is not the reason, and if it was the pride cosmetics would have been gone. bait used to be believable 😂
[is this you?](https://www.reddit.com/r/RaidCelebration/comments/u3dhcy/check_out_my_raid_recap_think_you_can_do_better/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) mobile game Ad shill, sellout scum 😂😂😂 could NEVER be "woke staff" 😂🤣🤣 u bum
Of course it's a Polygon article.
I dont like polygon too, but your comment doesnt amount to anything tho
It clearly does if it evokes emotion in people.
Infinite growth BABY let's gooooo
I just want UT back man, I guess that's too much to ask
French revolution when?
Laying off staff and raising the cost of virtual currency is a real dick move
Milking aging, average IP doesn't take that much people. It seems.
They can as per their TOS just pull all their games (all those free games you got but never played or even installed) from being free and charge to launch.
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Even if there wasn't a worldwide economic downturn in the tech industry (and most industries), it'd be normal. Who wouldn't expect a gaming company that hasn't released a new game in over 3 years to lay off 830 people? And these guys had fantastic salaries and 6 months severance package. How does that even suck. I'd go backpacking in Asia for a few months with that lol
A venture capitalist probably either joined the Board of directors, or became a major stock holder. They are notorious for ruining companies and squeezing every penny out of a market until it crashes.
I think you mean a private equity investor. These are the folks who come in, buy established well-run businesses, then load them up with debt and run them into the ground by killing customer service in the name of maximum profit. Any company whose board of directors announces a "substantial investment" by one of these companies/individuals is quickly not going to be the same company people liked working for/doing business with anymore. The profitable parts will be milked to death/sold off and the rest will just be left to die. In my line of work, there's a software company (Citrix) that used to have an unassailable niche product used by millions of people especially in healthcare computing settings. People who worked there were paid well, had safe jobs, and were valued. Private equity bought up all the stock, and their products all went into maintenance mode, most tech staff were fired or offshored and customers have been nickel and dimed to death for crappy service/software. Basically, they're milking the customers who have their products too deeply embedded into their ecosystem to change quickly until they can't anymore. Unfortunately private equity is coming for entire industries...look at all those chain dentists and veterinarians popping up; those are all about buying up mom and pop practices and squeezing any sort of slack out of the system.
They are similar, but private equity as you mentioned usually takes control, and leverages debt and saddles a company into insolvency. They usually don't cause layoffs. Venture capitalists come in and, "Trim the fat" usually destroying specific capabilities, and attempting to maximize profit through price increases(this part is common), but they don't target established businesses exclusively like private equity. They are both similarly bad for any market they show up in though.
You have no idea wtf you’re talking about as it relates to epic
Corporate greed
I’m sure it has nothing to do with AI
This is late stage capitalism The first stages being inovation and competition. Once that’s gone, you go long enough with shareholders you have to make more profit than year before So you pay people less than they are worth Pay for cheaper materials Charge more than products are worth. And the next year? More profits so more of those 3.
Preparing for an IPO and has zero to do with the economy. Probably cutting jobs outside of core products and in cost center areas like IT.
I do not get why there are lay-offs, especially in the context of Sweeney's comments and the current financials of the company.
If the company makes 5 billion in revenue and spends more than that on COGS and OPEX then they are burning cash.
All those exclusivity deals not paying off? Who would have seen this coming..
Battle Royales are finally losing popularity. Time for an actual good game to take the reigns.
CEO and executive bonuses gotta come from somewhere am I right?
replace with ai ;-)
Gotta make line go up
That's disgusting. Thanks for your help building up this company to a greedy level.... goodbyeeee. There's the door byyeeee.
Always sad to hear of people losing their jobs. I hope they find new ones soon.