Epic Games, the North Carolina-based studio behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine, has suffered a significant round of layoffs.
First reported by Bloomberg, Epic Games is laying off 870 employees, or about 16 percent of its workforce. The layoffs were announced via a memo to staff, Bloomberg wrote. Epic Games shared the memo CEO Tim Sweeney sent out to staff in a new blog post. The memo reveals that the studio is "divesting" music service platform Bandcamp and would spin off most of SuperAwesome, a kid-safe technology company. Both were acquired by Epic Games in 2022 and 2020, respectively.
You can read the full memo below.
Hi everyone,
As we shared earlier, we are laying off around 16% of Epic employees. We're divesting Bandcamp and spinning off most of SuperAwesome.
For a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators. I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic.
While Fortnite is starting to grow again, the growth is driven primarily by creator content with significant revenue sharing, and this is a lower margin business than we had when Fortnite Battle Royale took off and began funding our expansion. Success with the creator ecosystem is a great achievement, but it means a major structural change to our economics.
Epic folks around the world have been making ongoing efforts to reduce costs, including moving to net zero hiring and cutting operating spend on things like marketing and events. But we still ended up far short of financial sustainability. We concluded that layoffs are the only way, and that doing them now and on this scale will stabilize our finances.
We're also making some divestitures. Bandcamp is joining Songtradr, a music marketplace company supporting artists. SuperAwesome’s advertising business will become an independent company under the SuperAwesome brand, led by their current CEO Kate O’Loughlin. Kids Web Services (KWS), the parent verification and consent management toolset, will remain part of Epic.
Saying goodbye to people who have helped build Epic is a terrible experience for all. The consolation is that we're adequately funded to support laid off employees: we’re offering a severance package that includes six months base pay and in the US/Canada/Brazil six months of Epic-paid healthcare. We’re offering to accelerate people’s stock option vesting schedule through the end of 2024 and are giving two additional years from today to exercise the options. In the US we’re also offering to vest any unearned profit sharing from their 401k. And we’ll provide benefits including career transition services and visa support where we can.
For those still at Epic, you’ll hear more from senior leaders about the path forward for your team. Epic’s prospects for the future are strong. We have amazing game experiences across multiple platforms. We’ve built the best engine in the world, and will be hosting Unreal Fest next week to bring the community together and spotlight the things they are building with Unreal Engine and UEFN. Creators are making a living building for the Fortnite ecosystem, with time in third-party games now exceeding first-party.
We're cutting costs without breaking development or our core lines of businesses so we can continue to focus on our ambitious plans. About two-thirds of the layoffs were in teams outside of core development. Some of our products and initiatives will land on schedule, and some may not ship when planned because they are under-resourced for the time being. We’re ok with the schedule tradeoff if it means holding on to our ability to achieve our goals, get to the other side of profitability and become a leading metaverse company.
-Tim
Founded in 1991, Epic Games is best known for creating Unreal Engine and has developed a long list of games, including Unreal, the first four entries in the Gears of War series, and most notably the free-to-play battle royale game Fortnite.
Fortnite, in particular, has become an extremely profitable game for Epic. In 2021, Fortnite was reported to have generated $9 billion in two years and had 400 million registered users at the time.
News of layoffs comes just weeks after Epic's Chief Fortnite Architect Donald Mustard announced his departure, with Charlie Wen, a Marvel veteran who helped design God of War protagonist Kratos, replacing him.
Epic Games was embroiled in a legal feud with tech giants Apple and Google. However, Epic lost the case in 2021, with the ruling upheld by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year. Epic recently requested the U.S. Supreme Court weigh in on the antitrust case.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
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First reported by Bloomberg, Epic Games is laying off 870 employees, or about 16 percent of its workforce. The layoffs were announced via a memo to staff, Bloomberg wrote. Epic Games shared the memo CEO Tim Sweeney sent out to staff in a new blog post. The memo reveals that the studio is "divesting" music service platform Bandcamp and would spin off most of SuperAwesome, a kid-safe technology company. Both were acquired by Epic Games in 2022 and 2020, respectively.
You can read the full memo below.
Hi everyone,
As we shared earlier, we are laying off around 16% of Epic employees. We're divesting Bandcamp and spinning off most of SuperAwesome.
For a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators. I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic.
While Fortnite is starting to grow again, the growth is driven primarily by creator content with significant revenue sharing, and this is a lower margin business than we had when Fortnite Battle Royale took off and began funding our expansion. Success with the creator ecosystem is a great achievement, but it means a major structural change to our economics.
Epic folks around the world have been making ongoing efforts to reduce costs, including moving to net zero hiring and cutting operating spend on things like marketing and events. But we still ended up far short of financial sustainability. We concluded that layoffs are the only way, and that doing them now and on this scale will stabilize our finances.
We're also making some divestitures. Bandcamp is joining Songtradr, a music marketplace company supporting artists. SuperAwesome’s advertising business will become an independent company under the SuperAwesome brand, led by their current CEO Kate O’Loughlin. Kids Web Services (KWS), the parent verification and consent management toolset, will remain part of Epic.
Saying goodbye to people who have helped build Epic is a terrible experience for all. The consolation is that we're adequately funded to support laid off employees: we’re offering a severance package that includes six months base pay and in the US/Canada/Brazil six months of Epic-paid healthcare. We’re offering to accelerate people’s stock option vesting schedule through the end of 2024 and are giving two additional years from today to exercise the options. In the US we’re also offering to vest any unearned profit sharing from their 401k. And we’ll provide benefits including career transition services and visa support where we can.
For those still at Epic, you’ll hear more from senior leaders about the path forward for your team. Epic’s prospects for the future are strong. We have amazing game experiences across multiple platforms. We’ve built the best engine in the world, and will be hosting Unreal Fest next week to bring the community together and spotlight the things they are building with Unreal Engine and UEFN. Creators are making a living building for the Fortnite ecosystem, with time in third-party games now exceeding first-party.
We're cutting costs without breaking development or our core lines of businesses so we can continue to focus on our ambitious plans. About two-thirds of the layoffs were in teams outside of core development. Some of our products and initiatives will land on schedule, and some may not ship when planned because they are under-resourced for the time being. We’re ok with the schedule tradeoff if it means holding on to our ability to achieve our goals, get to the other side of profitability and become a leading metaverse company.
-Tim
Founded in 1991, Epic Games is best known for creating Unreal Engine and has developed a long list of games, including Unreal, the first four entries in the Gears of War series, and most notably the free-to-play battle royale game Fortnite.
Fortnite, in particular, has become an extremely profitable game for Epic. In 2021, Fortnite was reported to have generated $9 billion in two years and had 400 million registered users at the time.
News of layoffs comes just weeks after Epic's Chief Fortnite Architect Donald Mustard announced his departure, with Charlie Wen, a Marvel veteran who helped design God of War protagonist Kratos, replacing him.
Epic Games was embroiled in a legal feud with tech giants Apple and Google. However, Epic lost the case in 2021, with the ruling upheld by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year. Epic recently requested the U.S. Supreme Court weigh in on the antitrust case.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Continue reading...
