Today Epic Games announced a a large round of layoffs affecting its employees.
According to a press release echoing a letter to the staff from CEO Tim Sweeney, 830 employees have been laid off, 16% of the company’s workforce.
The company is also selling Bandcamp and spinning off the SuperAwesome advertising business, which has been acquired by its own leadership.
This means that another 250 employees associated with these businesses will leave Epic Games.
The reason behind the decision is that the company behind Fortnite and the Unreal Engine has been spending more money than it has earned for some time.
While Sweeney had been optimistic that the company could power through the transition without layoffs, that has proved to be an unrealistic hope,
The scale of the layoffs is deemed enough to stabilize Epic’s finances and the press release promises that there won’t be any more rounds coming.
Affected employees will receive a severance package including six months of base pay and healthcare for the same period for those in the US, Canada, and Brazil.
Two-thirds of the layoffs are said to be outside of core development departments and critical initiatives like the next season of Fortnite, Chapter 5, Del Mar, Sparks, and Juno won’t receive any schedule changes.
Some other projects may be delayed because they will be undermanned for the time being. This is something Epic is willing to accept to return to profitability and “become a leading metaverse company.”
Epic is also continuing its legal battles against Apple and Google over distribution monopolies, but it’s taking steps to reduce legal expenses.
