Epic Video games boss Tim Sweeney has insisted the corporate is now “financially sound” after a tumultuous interval by which 830 workers had been laid off.
In September 2023, the North Carolina studio behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine suffered a major spherical of layoffs that noticed 830 workers, about 16% of its workforce, lose their jobs.
Individually, Epic divested music service platform Bandcamp and spun off most of SuperAwesome, a kid-safe expertise firm. These had been acquired by Epic Video games in 2022 and 2020, respectively. Round 250 folks left Epic by means of the divestitures.
On the time, Sweeney mentioned Epic had been spending “far more cash than we earn, investing within the subsequent evolution of Epic and rising Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators.”
He additionally pointed to a “main structural change to our economics” after Fortnite progress transitioned from the explosively fashionable and extremely worthwhile battle royale that funded its preliminary enlargement, to the decrease margin enterprise that got here from creator content material with vital income sharing.
Now, a 12 months later, Sweeney has commented on the state of Epic Video games, and he definitely sounded extra bullish. Talking throughout a presentation at Unreal Fest 2024, as reported by GI.biz, Sweeney mentioned that Epic “spent the final 12 months rebuilding and actually executing solidly on all fronts.”
He added: “I am blissful to let you know now that the corporate is financially sound, and that Fortnite and the Epic Video games Retailer have hit new information in concurrency and success.”
On that entrance, Fortnite hit 110 million month-to-month lively customers over the vacations, a formidable milestone for a sport now seven years outdated. To place that into context, in August 2018 Fortnite hit 78.3 million MAUs.
Epic not often makes Fortnite participant numbers public, and when it does so it makes use of numerous metrics that make direct comparisons tough. Final 12 months’s Season OG, which introduced again the Chapter 1 Season 5 map and with it basic areas like Tilted Towers, Nice Park, and Dangerous Reels, noticed Fortnite hit a brand new peak of 44.7 million gamers in simply at some point. Epic beforehand mentioned Fortnite noticed a concurrent participant document of 15.3 million gamers for the December 2020 end-of-season dwell occasion, which noticed gamers teaming up with Iron Man, Wolverine, and different Marvel heroes to defeat Galactus.
In the meantime, the Epic Video games Retailer, which stays unprofitable because it battles with Steam maker Valve for the hearts and minds of PC players, reached 70 million month-to-month lively customers final month.
Based in 1991, Epic Video games is finest recognized for creating Unreal Engine whereas growing an extended record of video games, together with Unreal, the primary 4 entries within the Gears of Warfare sequence, and most notably the free-to-play battle royale sport Fortnite.
Fortnite specifically has proved extraordinarily worthwhile sport for Epic. In 2021, Fortnite was reported to have generated an eye-watering $9 billion in simply two years off the again of 400 million registered customers. Since then Fortnite has spawned a number of video games throughout the platform, together with Lego Fortnite, Fortnite Pageant, and Rocket Racing.
Nevertheless, lately Sweeney and Epic have turn out to be embroiled in a pricey authorized feud with tech giants together with Apple and Google over the launch of a competing app retailer for iPhones and Android telephones. In August, Sweeney admitted preventing Apple and Google had value Epic about $1 billion. And simply this week, Epic launched one other lawsuit, this time towards Samsung and Google, over a setting referred to as Auto Blocker that customers should flip off to put in Epic Video games and Fortnite.
Picture credit score: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photos.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.