Linus Tech Tips Discussion

 Epic Games to Lay Off 1,000 Staffers and Cut $500 Million in Costs Amid ‘Fortnite’ Downturn Summary Epic Games announced that they are laying off 1000 employees and cut $500 Million in cost that Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney disclosed in a memo stating that the downturn of their flagship free to play game Fortnite being the cause of the Layoffs.   Quotes Quote “Today we’re laying off over 1000 Epic employees. I’m sorry we’re here again,” Sweeney wrote. “The downturn in ‘Fortnite’ engagement that started in 2025 means we’re spending significantly more than we’re making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded. This layoff, together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place.”   My thoughts  I used to play Fortnite a lot back when it first came out and part of that was seeing a lot of Content creators were playing it at the time. Because a lot of the big content creators that were playing it and have moved on from and are playing different games now. And ever since the game hit the competitive market mid-way through Chapter 1 of the game, a lot of creators got frustrated with the game do to the amount sweats playing and just quit playing it for content. And that trend continued more over the years. I'm pretty sure the amount of people playing Battle Royle games have decreased a lot over the years. I'm finding that I can go months without playing it or even COD though I don't mind playing the Story Mode of COD Modern Warfare series. And the storyline within the Fortnite BR hasn't been the greatest in the last few years. So I'm not too surprised by this, it's too bad that people are now jobless but Epic put a lot of resources on one game instead of possibly working on other types of games that have a decent storyline.    Sources https://variety.com/2026/gaming/news/epic-games-layoff-1000-fortnite-downturn-500-million-1236697837/