Fortnite creator Epic Games lays off 900 employees amidst rising costs

Amidst global inflation and the rising cost of V-Bucks, Fortnite's creator, Epic Games, has laid off close to 900 employees. According to statistics, this accounts for roughly 16% of Epic Games' workforce. As per the statement made by CEO Tim Sweeney, the cuts were necessary as the company has been spending more than it was earning.

That being said, while not everyone who was laid off was part of the Fortnite team, a number of them did in fact work on the game, which includes the Save The World mode. Some who had even worked on Fall Guys were let go. Given the situation at hand, the community at large is worried about the future of the game, but according to leakers/data miners, Epic Games is still on track with things.

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Epic Games to stick to Fortnite's timeline despite laying off 900 employees

Despite the heartbreaking news, it seems that Epic Games is still committed to improving and working on the game in general. This includes core projects. In a letter to the employee, Tim Sweeney stated this:

"We're cutting costs without breaking development to our core lines of business so we can continue to focus on our ambitious plans."

According to veteran leakers/data miners, major projects that are in the pipeline are still on track. This includes Chapter 4 Season 5, Chapter 5, Del Mar (Racing Mode), Sparks (TBA), and Juno (Lego collaboration).

Aside from Sparks, the rest will go live over the course of the next few months. But coming back to the layoffs, it seems that Creative 2.0/UEFN (Unreal Engine for Fortnite) has had a role to play in things, Tim Sweeny says:

"While Fortnite is starting to grow again, the growth is driven primarily by creator content with significant revenue sharing. This is a lower margin business that we had when the Battle Royale took off and began funding our expansion. Success with the creator ecosystem is a great achievement, but it means a major structural change to our economics."

With the launch of UEFN earlier this year, there has been a major dynamic shift in how content is consumed in-game. Tim Sweeney even mentioned that nearly 50% of the playtime in-game came from user generator content (custom maps). This was even before UEFN went live.

With Epic Games banking on user-generated content even more, revenue sharing was brought into the picture not too long ago. A revenue pool of sorts was set up to ensure creators were paid. While this is a good thing, it seems this played some role that led up to the decisions that were made a few hours ago. Here's what a few users had to say about the situation:

As seen from just a few comments, while UEFN may be the next step forward, the community at large is still not impressed. Most users simply want a better storyline and originality—things that made Fortnite great back in the early days. While the game has evolved to encompass a lot and cater to different fandoms, things got muddled somewhere along the way.

Given how the storyline has been progressing of late, most players feel disconnected from the game itself. In fact, some even feel that the ex-CCO, Donald Mustard, saw these layoffs coming and disassociated himself from Epic Games.

All said and done, while Epic Games will undoubtedly power through this situation, it has left a negative impact on many community members. Knowing that employees who worked on Fortnite have been let go does not bode well for many. Taking into account that Fortnite, to an extent, propelled Epic Games' growth, the community feels let down in more ways than one.