Epic laying off 16% of its workforce - Valve chose the winning strategy?

[Yasahi]

News just recently broke out that Epic is laying off about 900 people or around 16% of its entire workforce.

On these forums many have been touting over the years how Epic with all the free games will take market away from Valve and bring forth the demise of Steam. Seems like that's not really the case, eh?

Valve choosing not to join the "free games for thee" madness seems to be doing just fine while Epic is starting to cut costs.

[RasaNova]

Wait, where is the forum's resident Epic defender? Should somebody check on him to make sure he's ok?

[Brian9824]

Цитата допису xBCxRangers:

Цитата допису brian9824:

Once again your claims don't align with actual facts or logic. Plenty of companies are showing profits being up in 2023 including Microsoft and Sony for instance. The gaming market in general has been doing very well lately which is why its even more laughable that EPIC is struggling so much.

That's interesting. I heard both Sony and MS are losing money, as development teams are blaming the former pandemic.

Then whatever sources you are listening to suck. The pandemic in general was great for gaming and they saw enormous increases in sales.

Цитата допису xBCxRangers:

Needless to say, no matter if that's true or not. The OP and those supporting the theory, failed, if only and not only that Steam has no real employees to lay off.

Steam has plenty of employees, they just haven't over-hired like EPIC did..

Цитата допису xBCxRangers:

Its a shadow company run by a relative few individuals, and going to my earlier point, the reason they too are having problems, Whether its inquiries from Governments other entities, on what goes on here as far as moderation, the games being sold that are literal ripoff schemes, price agreements, and really the blind leading the blind.

Except they are only having problems in your head. A question isn't a problem, neither are there problems with games , moderation, or price agreements. If anything EPIC is having far more problems having lost numerous massive lawsuits back to back

Its funny how people want to attack valve so badly they completely fail at the most basic facts. Then again sadly people can make up any lies they want and people will believe them.

[Doko]

What really gets me, is how Epic has literally trained a group of gamers into fully expecting games to be free outright.

like I still see ppl on EGS/EG twitter timeline either begging for their fave game or a game they want to go for free, or they get mad at Epic when the free game of the month isn't the game they wanted, or the same free game from 2 months ago (recycled freebies).

I'm actually glad Steam stopped with the flash sales from back in the day, because had they stayed that course, we would have all been fully conditioned/trained into just waiting/fully expecting flash sales outright.

I doubt EG are laying off staff that are working with UE5, but likely staff that are working with EGS, which of course would only end up setting Epic further behind Steam (like they already are with the lacking features and all that jazz).

[Mailer]

Well the Bandcamp acquisition was completely pointless then.

At least it seems that Epic will be treating the laid off workforce properly, and not just dumping them out.

Hopefully this is a sign of Epic refocusing on what actually works for them.

[Doko]

Цитата допису Crazy Tiger:

From what I've read most of the changes are related to Bandcamp and SuperAwesome.

Bandcamp would not surprise me at all, considering how they formed their own Union recently and challenged Epic as a result, so this could very well be them eliminating those within the union and replacing them with non union staff (they did also state they are hiring as well as laying off staff, so getting rid of those union members that Epic hates makes sense from their pov).

[Doko]

Цитата допису Mailer:

Well the Bandcamp acquisition was completely pointless then.

At least it seems that Epic will be treating the laid off workforce properly, and not just dumping them out.

Hopefully this is a sign of Epic refocusing on what actually works for them.

I honestly thought originally, that their deal with buying out Bandcamp/art station, was to use those two venues as a means to siphon money/talent from both of those pools and have them feed into UE and of course, talent into Fortnite, or generally just ideas to semi-legally take from.

[Wolfmaron]

even the games they throwing away free are affected

[Start_Running]

LOoking into it. Seems like the layoffs are basically trimming because their recent acquisitions were less than stellar in RoI.

Again. to be expected.

And I suspect the giveaways are gonna start slowing down come the next fiscal year. Not stopping just slowing down. Like once ever two weeks. Issuspect they'll rebrand it as the FOrtnitely Giveaway.

[Doko]

Цитата допису Start_Running:

LOoking into it. Seems like the layoffs are basically trimming because their recent acquisitions were less than stellar in RoI.

Again. to be expected.

And I suspect the giveaways are gonna start slowing down come the next fiscal year. Not stopping just slowing down. Like once ever two weeks. Issuspect they'll rebrand it as the FOrtnitely Giveaway.

Their selection of freebies has drastically come down in terms of quality, and their list of exclusives has shrunk over the past 2 yrs, to a point where it is no longer a heavy list of big hitters. There are even less exclusive indie dev contracts as well.

This is probably why their last ditch effort attempt was to offer up that 6 months exclusive deal, where devs publishers get 100% of the cut (though I doubt many are even going to take this, as over the years they have been slowly learning that it hasn't worked 100% for everyone who made the deals, only a small handful have come out unscathed in terms of profits/reputation.

[76561199502155650]

at least we can all come here for the few free games and free forums to talk about how nothing lines up with reality when it comes to steam talking about numbers, and profits. its all good for a laugh though, its just a shame that while we can see steam has dedicated so much time and money to having generally realistic user data, it seems to fail on its own data review declarations.


one of the funniest is reviewing steams population over the past 20 years, you can see that up until 2010 steam had less then 2 million uses, magically in 13 years steams gained 30 million more people, even though there was no baby boom, declining populations are all over the world, and kids today are rocking cellphones that play games, which they didn't have 13 years ago.

[Brian9824]

Цитата допису Unicorn - Rainbow Unit:

at least we can all come here for the few free games and free forums to talk about how nothing lines up with reality when it comes to steam talking about numbers, and profits. its all good for a laugh though, its just a shame that while we can see steam has dedicated so much time and money to having generally realistic user data, it seems to fail on its own data review declarations.


one of the funniest is reviewing steams population over the past 20 years, you can see that up until 2010 steam had less then 2 million uses, magically in 13 years steams gained 30 million more people, even though there was no baby boom, declining populations are all over the world, and kids today are rocking cellphones that play games, which they didn't have 13 years ago.

Not really strange at all, averaging 10-20% growth a year combined with more big name games coming to steam results in more users. I mean in 2010 steam only had around 350 games, now it has over 50,000 and the users follow the games

[Boblin the Goblin]

Цитата допису Unicorn - Rainbow Unit:

at least we can all come here for the few free games and free forums to talk about how nothing lines up with reality when it comes to steam talking about numbers, and profits. its all good for a laugh though, its just a shame that while we can see steam has dedicated so much time and money to having generally realistic user data, it seems to fail on its own data review declarations.


one of the funniest is reviewing steams population over the past 20 years, you can see that up until 2010 steam had less then 2 million uses, magically in 13 years steams gained 30 million more people, even though there was no baby boom, declining populations are all over the world, and kids today are rocking cellphones that play games, which they didn't have 13 years ago.

None of those correlate to each other except in your head.

[BJWyler]

Цитата допису xBCxRangers:

And so, the gaming business is changing, and as folks get away from PCs that are becoming more redundant in ones home, in the age of phones, gaming consoles, apps and smart tv's, as game engines, workers, developers and users want more of a piece of the pie, you can't do business as you did 20 years ago, anymore.

Actually, PC sales peaked over the last couple of years, almost hitting the high in sales from 10 years ago. Sales are dropping this year because, well everyone and their grandmother bought a new PC during the pandemic. It makes sense since the average consumer tends to hang on to their PC for about 7-10 years. The death of the PC has been forecast many times over the last 30 years. It won't be happening any time soon.

Цитата допису Unicorn - Rainbow Unit:

one of the funniest is reviewing steams population over the past 20 years, you can see that up until 2010 steam had less then 2 million uses, magically in 13 years steams gained 30 million more people, even though there was no baby boom, declining populations are all over the world, and kids today are rocking cellphones that play games, which they didn't have 13 years ago.

Steam exploded around that time because of the features added, like Greenlight, the Workshop, and the marketplace.

As more people became part of the Steam ecosystem, the benefits of digital distribution for both the consumer and developers, especially the indie scene, became realized.

[Aachen]

Цитата допису Unicorn - Rainbow Unit:

at least we can all come here for the few free games and free forums to talk about how nothing lines up with reality when it comes to steam talking about numbers, and profits. its all good for a laugh though, its just a shame that while we can see steam has dedicated so much time and money to having generally realistic user data, it seems to fail on its own data review declarations.


one of the funniest is reviewing steams population over the past 20 years, you can see that up until 2010 steam had less then 2 million uses, magically in 13 years steams gained 30 million more people, even though there was no baby boom, declining populations are all over the world, and kids today are rocking cellphones that play games, which they didn't have 13 years ago.

That is some epic FUDposting.

[xBCxRangers]

Цитата допису Unicorn - Rainbow Unit:

at least we can all come here for the few free games and free forums to talk about how nothing lines up with reality when it comes to steam talking about numbers, and profits. its all good for a laugh though, its just a shame that while we can see steam has dedicated so much time and money to having generally realistic user data, it seems to fail on its own data review declarations.


one of the funniest is reviewing steams population over the past 20 years, you can see that up until 2010 steam had less then 2 million uses, magically in 13 years steams gained 30 million more people, even though there was no baby boom, declining populations are all over the world, and kids today are rocking cellphones that play games, which they didn't have 13 years ago.

Wait a second. Just what are you trying to tell us here? That Mr Newell's numbers are a load of horse hockey? NON sense.

Its Xbox, Sony, Epic, GoG, THOSE are the charlatans. Not Steam. You can't say that here. Steam did nothing wrong.


We LOVE you, Uncle Newell