The wording of the announcement is better than the usual corporate non-speak too.
And still the overwhelming sentiment on HN is that unions are worthless.. When my company had layoffs the laws (thanks to the unions) made it favorable to us without needing the goodwill of the company. Additionally, representatives from the union were involved in all steps and made sure everything went as it should.
Layoffs really, really suck, but at least there's not a whiff of the "we're doubling down on AI to boost productivity" cop out that we're seeing across the industry.
It's sad that a company being honest about a difficult decision is praiseworthy these days, but here we are.
I agree, though it might also be worth pointing out that for a game company there's some risk in that messaging that doesn't exist for a normal SaaS company. Investors might like to hear it (whether it is the truth or not), but the game-playing audience tends to be only slightly less anti-generative-AI than say the art community.
This.
We really did have a far better shot at it than even most insiders appreciated (to the point rival companies would tell me to my face how confused they were by the apparent failure to execute), however, the core team were more interested in fighting over who would take credit for it when it succeeded than ever ensuring that it would.
Outside of being forced to use a game launcher to launch their games, what was the real crime? Not enabling gambling on their platform like steam?
Gabe Newell is a billionaire and has shown no particular need to enshittify his brand just to extract more profit. May he blessed with health and a long life.
All of the competition has missed either one or more of the features, making them feel like only a cash grab trying to avoid Valve's cut for providing these features.
Anway, it's not quixotic IMHO.
The reason is the highly successful competitor, in that case Steam, inspires a sort of megalomania in those aiming to compete with them, which leads to spectacular self destruction and consumer confusion as stores try to act big long before they are self sustaining.
There must be some fundamental problem with either developers or management system or both...
And doing this requires including a near complete web browser with piles of added hooks, obviously.
Building a marketplace or AppStore isn't quixotic - it helps build distribution and gives Epic the power needed to drive studios to the Unreal Engine, though this strategy clearly went to the backburner due to Fortnite and it's entire ecosystem becoming the golden goose.
That said, Epic is also significantly more overstaffed than it's peers.
Starting thinking of it as collection licenses to maybe install games, assuming the license is still valid when you finally get around to playing it. And your account is still valid. And the servers are still running. And your operating system will still run it. etc.
Maybe just get off the train. Your numbers add to the awful business model these games are built on.
We are Legion.
Since game journos are completely woke and unreliable using Steam's game ratings from REAL players is a God-send.
Without it you simply wouldn't know if a game is any good or not.
Executives care little about the stakeholders: the employees, the customers, the community. It's their company, too. They only care about investors and themselves. People who "own" pay a lower tax rate than those that "work". Let's fix that and make things great again.
Maybe he could destroy his wealth to keep the employees around a bit longer but it's better for everyone if they move on and the company has a legitimate opportunity to survive. Besides people don't want to be on corporate welfare anyways, they'd rather be part of a company where they can add meaningful value.
a product line that is still expected to make $6B this year plus a bunch of other massive IPs. Come on, if he can't keep the team together with that budget then he should step aside and let someone in charge who can.
Funny. Those companies don't seem to be hiring. Everyone is doing layoffs. Maybe you said that wrong? People running companies don't feel obligated to employ, therefore everyone is now Someone Else's Problem.
I think the reality is that Epic got big because of Fortnite but nothing lasts forever. They would have been better off building a war chest and pulling a Valve (though I'm sure they'd hate hearing it that way): going silent and making whatever they wanted for a while, and then trying to repeat the cycle, rebuilding the chest, and then going on. Video games are the exact opposite of Infinite Growth Forever. People get bored and move on.
Meanwhile, Epic has many stable and valuable businesses - Unreal, the game store, etc. - which are perfectly capable of sustaining a sizable company. Just not one as sizable as Epic is. The best case for them is they figure that out, and manage to make a sustainable go of it doing that.