Trying to make it in a market that already has lots of similar stuff, and where most of those games are trying to monopolize players time, always a difficult thing. And I assume it was PVP only, making it even harder.
I imagine the game was mostly a “me too” one, and it should’ve been ready years ago to have a good shot.
Hoo boy.
Epic Games Inc. is laying off about 900 employees, or 16% of its workforce, according to a person familiar with the matter.
They’re also raising the price of the Fortnite V-Bucks.
Jeez, that’s not a small reduction.
I haven’t been paying attention, but I assume Fortnite is nowhere near as popular as it was 3-4 years ago, right?
Also, it seems craaaaaazy to me that Epic has 5,600 employees.
I wonder if they also ballooned their staff during the pandemic like a lot of tech companies did. Why did they do that? They’ve all had to do huge layoffs in the last year because of it. I guess they thought that while everyone was remote they could scoop up some top-tier people they wouldn’t otherwise have access to? I haven’t heard an explanation, but that is my best guess.
Correct. Depending on who they fired afterwards, it may or may not have been the correct decision. In theory, if they ended up normalizing their workforce by firing underperformers who have been replaced by better employees they hired during the pandemic, that’s a win. Of course, mass layoffs are rarely well targeted, so who knows if any company really came out ahead.
In Epic’s case it’s less about direct employee hiring and more about the acquisition spree they went on after Fortnite BR blew up. Like why on earth did they even have something like Bandcamp?
FWIW, my impression was that Bandcamp was part of their plans to create huge libraries/services for Unreal content.
Yup. For a bit there they were really excited by Fortnite being some kind of multimedia hub.
Yes, I had the same impression. They have art asset system/store right, so my guess is that they wanted to eventually also provide sound and music eventually, and be the one stop point for your content needs.
Still, the connection to bandcamp for that was kind of light.
Well hopefully the staff at Mediatonic, famous for the breakout hit Fall Guys, manage to land on their feet. Sounds like the studio got hit pretty hard with layoffs; even if it didn’t lead to the closure of the studio, if Epic’s response is to be believed.
Holy shit, is that supposed to be Richard Nixon on the far right? lol
It’s the typical bank thief with a Nixon mask. You watched Point Break right? :P
Uh, no. I’ll check it out.
I mean, if I was to rob a bank wearing a presidential mask, it’d be one of James K. Polk, dad gummit!
I suppose it’s a classic case of seize-the-moment overhiring because they expanded A LOT after the acquisition. And certainly not on the lower end of the salary range.
So this just happened:
Seems like the law should be pretty well established? I think in most US states the law is something like ‘Go Whistle.’ Interested to see how it pans out for Bioware.
