In what has become a far too frequent dose of unfortunate news in the industry, it appears that another gaming giant is set to reduce the size of its workforce.
Epic Games, the masterminds behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine, are rumoured to be letting go of around 900 employees or 16% of its workforce.
Epic Games joins the likes of Microsoft, Sega, Unity, and EA - just to name a few - that have put the sword to their employee numbers. It's sad news that we are seeing far too often, despite the incredible array of games that have been released in 2023.
Epic Games rumoured to be laying off nearly 900 employees
In a developing story broken on X (formerly Twitter) by Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, the Slack profiles of hundreds of Epic Games employees were supposedly disabled as rumour began circulating about the status of many jobs in the company.
It is reported by now-former staff, who asked not to be mentioned by name, that an email memo was sent out by Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney, explaining that the company has been spending more than they're earning in recent times. It appears that no further layoffs are planned at the moment, but surprisingly Epic is still hiring.
The mass culling of staff is said to be affecting 870 of Epic Games' employees. A silver lining, perhaps, is that those included in those numbers will receive six months of severance, health insurance, and accelerated stock vesting. Nonetheless, the news will no doubt be a shock to all of those in the firing line.
Schreier also reported via X that this is not the only responsive action Epic has taken in response to their profit issue. The company are allegedly selling music site Bandcamp to Songtradr and severing their decade-long relationship with SuperAwesome, which will allow them to operate as an independent youth marketing company.
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