Epic Games Cuts Over 1,000 Jobs Weeks After Raising Fortnite V-Bucks Prices

That poor multibillion dollar company. They really are struggling with that massive game of theirs. They're really struggling to keep the lights on and the money in their pockets, I hope everyone's not too harsh on them...

Say what you want about Nintendo but I have yet to see any mass layoffs from them

The corporate world at its worst.

That's ~25% of all Epic Games employees, the industry is in very dire straits if the company behind one of the biggest games on the planet needs to lay off this many people at once.

Horse couldn't be flogged forever.

Good luck to all those losing their jobs.

I blame myself for all those free games I've picked up from the Epic Games Store.

Sounds like an Epic Failure to me.

So even the juggernaut is affected. Goddamn. But I suppose when the game is FTP and relies on its in store currency skin and battle pass purchases it’s none too surprising.

Fortnite was also one of the most generous in terms of rewards and unlockables you could earn, (in free or paid tiers), so it was bound to hit them at some point.

I still commend all the newer modes they attempted to implement. Rocket Racing is extremely underrated (basically Excitetruck) and it sucks that they weren’t able to find engagement on this Arcady racer as it was awesome. The music festival battle mode i am less surprised is leaving, but at least it isn’t losing its main Rockband mode as thats Harmonix only output as of late.

@RupeeClock yeah but at the time Iwata also made clear that one of the most competitive aspects of Nintendo was having lower prices than the competition.

I REALLY doubt the current people in leadership at Nintendo feels the same, seeing what happened lately.

I'm no expert in this game (played it a bit to be sociable, but it's not my thing) but I've noticed my kids and their friends used to be on it daily up until a few months ago, and they've now abandoned it. When asked why, they responded with "it's gone rubbish."

Could be another bellweather of things to come. Last time Epic did this, several companies followed is short succession.

This could be the canary in the coal mine.

OR it could be that Fortnite is almost ten years old at this point.

@GoldenSunRM Nintendo, much like Apple, hasn’t gone on a mass hiring spree like other companies in the space. Hence why Nintendo Co in Japan has rarely laid people off or eliminated roles. Also, I believe if the company was in stretched like that again, Furukawa would do what Iwata did. It’s part of Nintendo’s corporate identity, which he hasn’t changed since Iwata’s passing. Other Japanese companies do the same practice. The last president of Toyota lost his role when the company lost their top spot in the world, so the new president’s mandate is to claim the top spot again.

Your feelings toward the company don’t fit the reality.

Don't forget how they then turned around and bought a ton of prizes for the new season.

"Pay the bills"

I bet no overpaid management / uppermanagement got cut, only regular staff!

Guys they’re a small indie company cut them some slack./s

@progx it's not a feeling that part of the core aspect of what was the identity of the company has changed.

Nintendo literally passed from being the company parents go to for the most high quality and cheap (in terms of money spent) product for their kid, to the opposite. It's clear that something has changed since Iwata's passing.

It’s a complicated topic. My wife works in market research, and she had to conduct a detailed study on this subject. And we found out that (I won’t remember all of them):

• The tomato sauce factory we buy from laid off 150 employees in 2025.
• The cereal factory we eat from laid off nearly 200 employees in 2025.
• The factory of the car brand we bought shut down an entire plant, laying off 2,500 employees.
• The farmers who supply all the fruits and vegetables we buy at the market laid off 80% of their workers, since tractors and inventory are now automated with AI and GPS-guided autonomous vehicles.
• The internet provider we use in our city laid off 50% of its workforce, since everything is now automated with AI.

We are not going to stop consuming the vegetables available in our city’s market, nor the tomato sauce; we won’t sell our car, and we won’t stop using the internet. And, without a doubt, I’m not going to stop playing Rocket League (one of my favorite games of all time).

The world is undergoing an intense transformation. I don’t know what will happen in the future. I only know that it’s impossible to contain it.

My strategy for my children (a 3-year-old daughter and a 10-month-old son) is:

If you graduate in agronomy, I will finance the tractor that will operate autonomously with AI. Be the owner of your own production.
If you graduate in medicine, I will finance your AI-powered MRI machine (or whatever equipment is necessary). Be the owner of the machine.

The advice I give to young people is: start your own company, be your own business, be your own brand. Don’t work for other people. Because in 30…40…50 years, I doubt that your job will still exist.

I'll never forgive Epic Games for making Fall Guys terrible. This just adds to the pile of their sins.

I hope all the laid-off workers can find better employment soon.

Used to be working for a big company like Epic meant job security, they could weather the storms of a big flop or an industry lull. But it's the opposite now, earn 10 billion this month instead of 11 billion? There goes your job to make the shareholders happy.

It takes remarkably little effort to leave a comment on a news story, doesn't it?

These headlines always bring back a line by an idiot back at university, who mistook himself for an economist, because he happened to have a degree: The costs are always the most expensive part.

Took me years to fully realize that he was in fact not an idiot at all. He was indeed an economist and doing a fine job at it, too. The profession itself though is idiotic.

He could never be quite convinced that companies earn what they spend and workers spend what they earn. Why? It just didn't fit the modells and the modells, that much he knew, were always right - empirical reality and compeling logic be damned.

To his credit, he never claimed to be a scientist. He had some real backbone in that regard, unless the rest of his department.

@Rykdrew Best advice: inherit wealth.

I wish the best for the employees affected and hope that they find stable jobs again soon, but I do realize that sometimes, laying off employees really does help a business. Why pay 1,000 more people if you don't need them around and the other employees can do it just fine? That's what I would do if I were the head of a big company. But still, I do hope that the employees affected find a new stable job soon.

@westman98 they don’t need to lay off people, they want to lay off that many people. Epic has one of the most successful games and one of the most used game engines. They have enough money.

Never thought I'd see Fortnite's demise coming soon.

Having navigated a round of layoffs at my work, I'll say they are not about efficiency. If anything, they cause massive internal turmoil and havoc since the survivors have to pickup the slack.

Layoffs are for investor engagement for future revenue calls and give the impression there is less overhead. The IMPRESSION of efficiency is enough for investor sentiment and get a point or two on the stock value

Everyone lies to everyone. #thoughtsandprayers

There's only one answer and it's boycott.

They say Donald Mustard's house grew two sizes that day

@Rykdrew what a stupid reasoning. Are you up to a world with 8 billion of brands? Are you telling EVERYONE should have their own bussiness? That's absolutely *****.

Fortnite is about to reach it's lowest point. I am DONE with this game. Brainrot Characters in the game, Shutting down 3 whole game modes, and now THIS.

God i wish i could go back to Spellbreak. I'm not gonna financially support a game with Tung Tung Tung Sahur in it.

Re: Nintendo, I think their lack of layoffs is part of their corporate culture. . . but its also not an act of charity, either. Unlike nearly every other company in the industry, Nintendo thinks about the long term. They don't constantly hire and fire talent, because they want a consistent talent base that isn't working on "the next game", but on game after game for upcoming decades. While other companies view personnel as interchangeable cogs to be supplied ad hoc... which amongst other effects means they largely get the work that results from interchangeable cogs.

Re: Epic- I suspect at least a big part of this isn't actually Fortnite at all. Rather, its the Epic Game Store, and the amount of cash they've been burning to try and brute force it into becoming an industry monopoly. All those cash-up-front deals and low percent contracts and exclusivity clauses and free games didn't come for free; and now they are finding that trying to treat the EGS as a loss leader has generated a fat lot of bupkiss, in terms of actual profits.

@Dr_Corndog Yes

So, the cashcow is starting to run dry? Poor Epic Games! I never got into Fortnite, so I really don't care, but it is quite obvious where this is going. Lay-offs, cost savings, and price hikes, so the higher ups are not affected for the time being. Capitalism at its finest!

I can't fathom so many people working on one game. As unfortunate as this is for the devs, what's bad for these types of games is good for the industry. There is no gaming industry if gamers can't rip themselves away from Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite to go try other things.