The video game industry is currently experiencing a seemingly endless bout of ruinous deja vu. Every month, another publisher posts an all too familiar statement about job losses in its development studios. There will be airy expressions of regret and platitudes praising the skill and contribution of the imminently jobless; it is all filtered through layers of corporate doublespeak intended to disguise the human cost of downsizing.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, it was the turn of Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, one of the most successful titles on the planet. In a note posted online<\/a>, CEO Tim Sweeney announced that more than 1,000 jobs would be lost \u2013 this followed the cutting of 830 staff in September 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n The statement by Sweeney was a masterclass in the corporate rhetoric of regret. \u201cThe downturn in Fortnite<\/a> engagement that started in 2025 means we\u2019re spending significantly more than we\u2019re making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded. This layoff, together with over $500m of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open roles puts us in a more stable place.\u201d He went on to blame, \u201cindustry-wide challenges\u201d: slower growth, weaker spending, tougher cost economics.<\/p>\n Fortnite makes around $4bn a year in revenue, it is the fourth most played PC game in the world. Epic Games is estimated<\/a> to have made $6bn in revenue in 2025. But somehow it is spending more than it\u2019s making. Midway through his note, Sweeney tacitly alludes to the fact that one of the company\u2019s biggest costs has been its expensive legal actions against Google and Apple<\/a>. Not much those developers could have done about that.<\/p>\n One of the company\u2019s biggest costs has been its expensive legal actions against Google and Apple. Photograph: Dado Ruvi\u0107\/Reuters<\/p>\n Analysts will be sifting through these figures for weeks, pointing out the complex and shifting market conditions, forecasting further woes ahead. Everybody seems to know why this is happening, but not how to stop it. Games<\/a> are getting more expensive to make, but growth is stalling; companies took on too many staff in Covid because they saw a massive boost in sales and thought that nobody was ever going to go outside again. There\u2019s more competition from social media and streaming. Attention, it turns out, is a finite commodity.<\/p>\n But what I can\u2019t help thinking is this: there are publishers spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new \u201clive service\u201d multiplayer games, then shutting them down when they don\u2019t instantly become the next Minecraft, Roblox, Call of Duty or, yes, Fortnite. Xdefiant<\/a> lasted a few months, Highguard<\/a> a month, Concord two weeks<\/a>. Execs no doubt saw it as a high risk, high reward strategy. But if the games industry\u2019s entire executive class believes that live service games are the future, what does it mean when one of the biggest brands in the genre apparently can\u2019t pay the bills?<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been writing about games for 30 years and it has always struck me that the wrong people are running the industry. But now, the stakes are so much higher on each shoddy, short-term bet. Famously, in 1983, the US games industry almost destroyed itself<\/a> when too many manufacturers and software companies flooded the market with consoles and games that were merely weaker copies of what Atari was doing. Since then I\u2019ve seen trends rise and plummet \u2013 arcade-style racing and fighting games, guitar games, toys-to-life games, pet sims, life sims, stealth games, massively multiplayer online games, gangster games, open world adventure games \u2026 One or two successful titles, then a glut, then the audience moves on and jobs evaporate. I\u2019ve seen executives move from one failure to another \u2013 almost always upwards. I see them at industry events, the same faces, the same business casual wear that screams, \u201cdeep down, I\u2019m a gamer like you\u201d. But you\u2019re not though, are you?<\/p>\n According to many analysts, most live service games have peaked<\/a>, but major publishers are still doubling down<\/a>. Like many other industries in the late capitalist era, this is a business obsessed with growth. Growth at all costs. Companies pin everything on a few \u201csafe\u201d bets, now those bets on live games are looking less safe than ever<\/a>. And when players inevitably move on, it\u2019s the developers who get jettisoned with them.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we now need to do is clear,\u201d wrote Sweeney in the traditionally optimistic and forward looking closing remarks of any redundancy notice (you gotta keep those shareholders upbeat). \u201cBuild awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content, gameplay, story, and live events \u2026 And we\u2019ll be kicking off the next generation of Epic with huge launch plans towards the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been to hundreds of game studios throughout my career. These are insanely talented people, often working punishing hours \u2013 they become like family to each other, every team having its own unique culture. Among those laid off by Epic Games this week, there will be hundreds of people who dreamed their whole lives of this job \u2013 they may have made personal sacrifices, moved away from loved ones, incurred huge student debts. What will their plans be towards the end of the year? And which group of talented committed game creators will be joining them next?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The video game industry is currently experiencing a seemingly endless bout of ruinous deja vu. 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