Epic Games is reportedly laying off 16% of its staff
Epic Games is reportedly laying off around 16% of its workforce.
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reports that the company, which is responsible for the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, “is laying off around 900 employees, which amounts to around 16% of its staff.
According to Schreier, the job cuts were announced in a memo to staff.
This is the latest example of widespread redundancies taking place across the games industry this year, as companies make corrections on their post-pandemic expansion.
Earlier this year Microsoft confirmed plans to lay off approximately 10,000 employees, including some at Xbox and Bethesda.
CD Projekt Red announced plans in July to lay off around 10% of its staff, with CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński stating that the company wants to have “teams that are more agile and more effective”.
Layoffs have also recently been occurring at a number of other companies, including Unity, Riot Games, Blizzard, Crystal Dynamics, Bioware and The Callisto Protocol studio Striking Distance.
In a recent analysis for VGC, GamesIndustry.biz’s Christopher Dring suggested that the widespread layoffs could partly be attributed to companies expecting to maintain momentum following the pandemic, but saw game sales that were lower than expected.
“For other companies, particularly public ones like Microsoft, a decline in sales is a problem,” Dring wrote. “Shareholders don’t want to see their investments go backwards.
“As a result, the management teams are required to look at the business and see if there are any efficiencies that need to be made, or if there are departments that just aren’t delivering.”
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