Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Video games, has introduced right this moment that the Fortnite creator is shedding greater than 1,000 employees members, in addition to confirming the shutdown of Rocket Racing, Ballistic, and Pageant Battle Stage modes for the battle royale title.
Talking in a notice to employees right this moment, the manager partially blamed a downturn in Fortnite engagement for the job losses, regardless of it remaining “one of the vital profitable video games on this planet.” Nevertheless, Sweeney notice that engagement has remained inconsistent between seasons.
At the moment we’re shedding over 1000 Epic workers. I’m sorry we’re right here once more. The downturn in Fortnite engagement that began in 2025 means we’re spending considerably greater than we’re making, and we’ve got to make main cuts to maintain the corporate funded. This layoff, along with over $500 million of recognized price financial savings in contracting, advertising and marketing, and shutting some open roles places us in a extra secure place.
Those that have misplaced their jobs will obtain a severance packaged “that features no less than 4 months of base pay, with extra based mostly on tenure,” he added.
A number of the challenges we’re dealing with are industry-wide challenges – slower progress, weaker spending, and harder price economics, present consoles promoting lower than final technology’s, and video games competing for time in opposition to different increasingly-engaging types of leisure.
And a few of our challenges are distinctive to Epic. Regardless of Fortnite remaining one of the vital profitable video games on this planet, we’ve had challenges delivering constant Fortnite magic with each season; we’re solely within the early phases of returning to cellular and optimizing Fortnite for the world’s billions of smartphones; and in being the {industry}’s vanguard we’ve got taken a whole lot of bullets in a battle which is just within the early days of paying off for ourselves and all builders.
The layoffs come only a few weeks after Epic Video games introduced that it was rising the worth of Fortnite V-Bucks, which got here into impact on March 19. This isn’t the primary time that V-Bucks have elevated in worth, as again in September 2023 Epic Video games revealed that it was bumping up the worth alongside confirming almost 900 individuals had misplaced their jobs on the firm. This amounted to round 16% of its workforce on the time.
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