Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney speaks on stage at Samsung Unpacked New York City at Barclays Center on August 9, 2018 in Brooklyn, New York.
Mike Coppola Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Epic Games announced Thursday that it will lay off 16% of its employees, sell its music platform Bandcamp and spin off most of its SuperAwesome service.
in memo Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said on his website that about two-thirds of the roughly 830 job cuts will be “outside of core development,” prompting the company to suspend major plans. He said that he was cutting costs without any changes. He said Epic, which develops and publishes video games such as Fortnite, has been working to reduce spending on things like marketing and events, but has concluded that “layoffs are the only way to achieve financial stability.” ” he said.
“For some time now, we’ve spent far more money than we earned, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a Metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators.” Mr. Sweeney wrote. “I was optimistic for a long time that we would be able to get through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic.”
Sweeney also announced that Epic is selling the music platform Bandcamp, which it acquired last year, to music licensing platform Songtradr.
In a separate post, Songtradr said it would “continue to operate Bandcamp as a marketplace and music community with artist-first revenue sharing.”
Sweeney said SuperAwesome’s Epic advertising business, which provides children’s services, will become an independent company under the SuperAwesome brand.
The layoffs at Epic Games are the latest in a growing list of layoffs across the technology industry, which has faced slowing growth and rising interest rates since early last year.
Epic is a privately held company with a majority minority stake held by China’s Tencent.That company is cherished It will exceed $30 billion in 2022.
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