The wording of the announcement is better than the usual corporate non-speak too.
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?
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.
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.
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.
adrianhon•1h ago
Thev00d00•55m ago