BROOKLYN, NY – AUGUST 09: CEO of Epic Games Tim Sweeney speaks onstage during Samsung Unpacked New York City at Barclays Center on August 9, 2018 in Brooklyn City.
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Epic Games on Thursday said it’s laying off 16% of its workforce, selling its music platform Bandcamp and spining off most of its SuperAwesome services.
In a memo Epic shared on its website, CEO Tim Sweeney said about two-thirds of the roughly 830 job cuts will be “outside of core development,” so the company is reducing costs without interrupting major plans. He said Epic, which develops and publishes video games like Fortnite, had been working to cut spending on things like marketing and events, but “concluded that layoffs are the only way” to reach financial stability.
“For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators,” Sweeney wrote. “I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic.”
Sweeney also announced that Epic will sell its music platform Bandcamp, which it acquired last year, to Songtradr, a music licensing platform.
Songtradr said in a separate post that it “will continue to operate Bandcamp as a marketplace and music community with an artist-first revenue share.”
Sweeney said Epic’s advertising business for SuperAwesome, which offers kid-friendly services, will become an independent company under the SuperAwesome brand.
The layoffs at Epic Games are the latest in a growing list of job cuts across tech industry, which has faced slowing growth and higher interest rates since early last year.
Epic is privately held, with China’s Tencent owning a large minority stake. The company was valued at over $30 billion in 2022.
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