Following a Bloomberg report, Epic Games has confirmed that it will be laying off around 16% of its workforce; or some 830 employees.

"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," Tim Sweeney said in an email to Epic employees. "I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic."

Sweeney also mentioned that Epic is looking to sell the independent music storefront Bandcamp and spinning off SuperAwesome, a branch that specializes in creating safe online experiences for children.

SOURCE

 

[The Catboy]

They're not Steam

Have you considered asking yourself why you don’t see this hate toward GOG or any other online store? You do see people complaining about technical issues or poor service, like EA and Ubisoft stores but never really much in the form of hate toward them. I don’t think it’s because they aren’t Steam, I think it’s because they are legitimately a terrible company with poorly made store. I think it has more to do with their shady practices and trying to literally kill their competitors by throwing more money at buying out exclusives than paying their employees or fixing their store front. I think it has more to do with their outright shitty attention toward customer satisfaction. I think it’s because they do the opposite of what makes Steam and GOG good

 

[jomaper]

how much are the CEO and other directors earning anyway?

 

[UltraHurricane]

Have you considered asking yourself why you don’t see this hate toward GOG or any other online store? You do see people complaining about technical issues or poor service, like EA and Ubisoft stores but never really much in the form of hate toward them. I don’t think it’s because they aren’t Steam, I think it’s because they are legitimately a terrible company with poorly made store. I think it has more to do with their shady practices and trying to literally kill their competitors by throwing more money at buying out exclusives than paying their employees or fixing their store front. I think it has more to do with their outright shitty attention toward customer satisfaction. I think it’s because they do the opposite of what makes Steam and GOG good

i think it's REALLY odd and also stupid that people here are cheering for Epic having layoffs when the people in-charge of giving Epic it's shitty reputation are still working there and are probably the ones that made the decision to fire people that likely didn't have a say in how the company is being run

 

[Sir Tortoise]

Have you considered asking yourself why you don’t see this hate toward GOG or any other online store?

To be honest, on this site in particular I think GOG gets praise because it makes piracy very straightforward. Other than that, I think it neatly avoids triggering the console war mentality by not requiring you to use the launcher.

They also occupy a slightly different niche to Steam, unlike Epic which is trying to compete directly for the same sort of games. Which people then get defensive about. There's little fuss about GOG exclusives because they're typically the sort of thing that are unlikely to come to Steam - even if GOG are deliberately seeking them out, that's not them "literally trying to kill their competitors", presumably.

As for other online stores, they're much more niche than either Steam or Epic. If they tried to branch out from their own IP similar to Epic, I'd expect a similar backlash. Even if they had a shopping cart on release.

Post automatically merged: Oct 3, 2023

i think it's REALLY odd and also stupid that people here are cheering for Epic having layoffs when the people in-charge of giving Epic it's shitty reputation are still working there and are probably the ones that made the decision to fire people that likely didn't have a say in how the company is being run

As the Epic shill assigned to this thread, just want to say I don't think the layoffs are good. Epic definitely has its issues - I just don't think paying for exclusives is one of them. Just in case I am being included in "people" here.

 

[subcon959]

As the Epic shill assigned to this thread

It's a losing battle there are just too many gamers enamoured with Steam. It's clear from the list of complaints that most of them wouldn't change their mind even if all the improvements were made, it's a fundamental tribal feeling that won't go away. Just keep in mind that a lot of them here are pirates anyway so it's all banter.

Although I enjoy my Steam Deck, I'm always going to have a hate/tolerate relationship with the company that killed physical PC games. I'm also not arsed about any storefront though. I just want to click an icon and launch a game so any other "features" are lost on me.

 

[VartioArtel]

Even with the free games EGS is not that compelling to use. Steam is still way ahead.

Post automatically merged: Oct 3, 2023

They own a DRM-free music website, but their games are DRM-enabled. Huh.

There's times they offer major new-ish AAA games for free, which I can't think of many times if any Steam's done that. But yeah. Really not compelling at all.

 

[lordofcombo]

I guess fortnite lame skin and dances are not a long term sustainable strategy huh? Didn't know new IPS need that much thinking.

 

[Luke94]

But what does it mean? No more Jazz Jackrabbit 1 & 2 re-releases on GOG.com?
Why it can’t be even on multiple digital stores these days? Like Microsoft Store,Steam…etc.
Why for instance Origin got removed?
Why it can’t be those games I mean on Sony PlayStation 5,Microsoft Xbox Series X,Nintendo Switch,Google Android,Microsoft Phone,Apple iPad,Apple iPhone…etc. For modern game consoles. Why not at least that.

 

[JeepX87]

Fuck to crazy Epic and Tim Sweeney for made some PC games exclusive on Epic.

I refuse to make a new account for Epic and will not redeem their free games.

 

[RichardTheKing]

The only thing worth anything that's unfortunately Epic-exclusive (and this time, without their history of filching, pretty sure), in my opinion, is Kingdom Hearts.
Why that's not on Steam, I have no clue; surely it'd sell so much better on a storefront everyone already uses and mostly trusts, than on a store that's so widely disliked.

So since it's not on Steam, and I absolutely refuse to give my info to the CCP via EGS...avast, me hearties! It's time ta sail the seven seas! Yohoho!

 

[Bladexdsl]

Why that's not on Steam, I have no clue

really it's obvious it's because tiny timmy got exclusive rights to it to be on his shitty epic store just like he does to every other game.

 

[64bitmodels]

I'm always going to have a hate/tolerate relationship with the company that killed physical PC games.

Steam didn't force physical games to go bloop, the companies and the consumers did that. They offered a service and the overwhelming majority said they perfer it. If Steam didn't bring PC digital only someone else (probably Microsoft) would've.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Steam didn't force physical games to go bloop, the companies and the consumers did that. They offered a service and the overwhelming majority said they perfer it. If Steam didn't bring PC digital only someone else (probably Microsoft) would've.

Unfortunately, it was for the best in the case of PC gaming.

The options were:
1) Digital
2) DVD
3) Blu-ray

Blu-ray on PC? Hardly anyone uses that and laptops/towers don't necessarily come with a BD Drive so it'd require the customer to buy one to have the games to run.

As things are, Steam and GOG are really good launchers/stores.

 

[Kwyjor]

Unfortunately, it was for the best in the case of PC gaming.

The options were:
1) Digital
2) DVD
3) Blu-ray

Blu-ray on PC? Hardly anyone uses that and laptops/towers don't necessarily come with a BD Drive so it'd require the customer to buy one to have the games to run.

Under different circumstances I can imagine distribution via flash drives taking off. Of course that would be enormously more expensive for the publishers, but on the other hand you can imagine they'd see it as a great excuse to integrate some kind of awful hardware DRM.

But of course that wouldn't resolve the much bigger problem of seemingly every single game having major post-release updates with gigantic download sizes to resolve critical bugs. Anyone else remember The Patches Scrolls?

 

[64bitmodels]

Under different circumstances I can imagine distribution via flash drives taking off. Of course that would be enormously more expensive for the publishers, but on the other hand you can imagine they'd see it as a great excuse to integrate some kind of awful hardware DRM.

But of course that wouldn't resolve the much bigger problem of seemingly every single game having major post-release updates with gigantic download sizes to resolve critical bugs. Anyone else remember The Patches Scrolls?

at the end of the day corporations will corporation. They put DRM in physical media, if it continued even today it would be the same thing. We'd be seeing Denuvo on disks, always online requirements with physical, and discs with 10% of the actual game data on it.
You can't stop a shareholder's desire to see more and more growth.

 

[Aristeia]

I hope everyone who lost their jobs finds a better working environment, I can't imagine a lot of these people had Epic as their first choice...

Also I always find it amusing that these types of press releases are never detailed, you'd think if it was just catering staff or something they'd be quite open about who they are firing exactly, since axing the cleaning lady isn't going to reflect too much on the exchange. Omission is always an admission to something bad.

 

[LarsInn]

Totally sad. But as we know about companies, It's all about "The Money".

 

[Vetusomaru]

DIVERSITY IS OUR STRENGTH!

 

[Luke94]

I made some minor changes in Unreal and
Unreal Tournament. Probably Vulpes or even someone else made Jazz Jackrabbit Character Skins Pack in 3D for Unreal Gold,but not yet for Unreal Tournament Game Of The Year Edition.