A bombshell new report happened this Thursday Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, has decided to cut around 900 jobs, which equates to 16% of its workforce.
A crushing report has just come off the front page of Bloomberg this morning as Epic Games has apparently cut 900 jobs internally, effectively removing 16% of its workforce. The job cuts were allegedly announced in a memo to the body of staff and were revealed by an unnamed person who refused to release their identity. Lead Bloomberg Reporter Jason Schreier tweeted more information will surely follow after the initial announcement, as an “all-hands meeting” is in progress. The tweet can be seen below.
Employees affected by the job loss will allegedly receive six months of severance and health insurance, as well as stock vesting. Schreier has also reported Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said, “For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn,” in a statement. Notably, Epic Games is still hiring, and some of the top positions accepting applications on their website are “AI Programmer” and “AI Programmer Intern”.
It also seems that recently acquired Mediatonic, the team behind Fall Guys, has also been hit hard. While there is no word on what this means for the future of the game, it seems that many of the people who made the game so great are affected by these layoffs. Lead artist Stef, detailed on X, “Unfortunately, i’m one of the unlucky people affected by the Epic lay-offs today.”
This year has been no stranger to technology company layoffs, as many companies have turned to cutting their workforce to stifle spending. To name a few tech companies besides Epic Games, Unity, Blizzard’s esports division, Pokémon GO Developer Niantic, Embracer, and the list goes on. It’s worth noting Tencent, the company that holds 40% of Epic Games, has seen its median stock price plummet since it was listed at $42.34 on August 29 to $38.08 as of this post (according to Google Finance). That is a near 9% dropoff, but it has been proven that stock prices rebound after mass layoffs, at least from the sample size provided this year.
Unity, in particular, has seen its stock soar from $24.99 on May 3, 2023, to $36.32 merely a month later after announcing its third round of layoffs, according to Google Finance. While Chief Executive Tim Sweeney does hold the majority of Epic Games with 60%, this move could be in relation to the dwindling Tencent stock price. What’s interesting is Tencent purchased 16% of Elden Ring developer FromSoftware last year, and publisher Bandai gave employees $5,000 raises for the success of Elden Ring.
This is a developing situation as Epic Games is embroiled in its reported “all-hands” meeting, so fans can stay tuned for what happens next. We have reached out to Epic Games regarding the recent layoffs, and no word has been given yet, Epic Games still has yet to release a public statement on the layoffs.
