{"id":2343983,"date":"2026-03-24T19:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2343983"},"modified":"2026-03-24T19:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:33:08","slug":"fortnite-maker-epic-games-lays-off-1000-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/fortnite-maker-epic-games-lays-off-1000-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Fortnite’ maker Epic Games lays off 1,000 employees"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Epic Games, the developer of the popular video game \u201cFortnite,\u201d is laying off more than 1,000 employees and cutting $500 million in costs.<\/p>\n

Chief Executive Tim Sweeney announced the cuts Tuesday morning in a message to employees. He said it has nothing to do with AI and instead pointed to what he said was a lack of \u201cFortnite\u201d engagement last year. <\/p>\n

\u201cDespite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we\u2019ve had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season,\u201d said Sweeney in a statement.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s flagship game was first released in 2017. Since then, it\u2019s been a key part of internet culture \u2014 where character-specific dances became widespread trends and major musicians, like Travis Scott and Ariana Grande, have hosted concerts in the virtual realm. <\/p>\n

But Epic has been slow to optimize the computer game for mobile play. A \u201cFortnite\u201d app was first introduced in 2018, but soon removed due to a legal battle against Apple and Google over app store practices.<\/a> Sweeney said the company is still in the \u201cearly stages of returning to mobile <\/a>and optimizing Fortnite for the world\u2019s billions of smartphones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of Epic\u2019s woes also come from industry-wide challenges, like \u201cslower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics,\u201d Sweeney wrote. And Epic isn\u2019t the only one suffering. In recent years, gaming companies like Electronic Arts<\/a> and Microsoft\u2019s Xbox division<\/a> have all cut down their workforces.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the State of the Game Industry Report from the Game Developers Conference<\/a> found roughly one-third of U.S. video game industry workers were laid off in the past two years.<\/p>\n

Epic Games was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina. It has dozens of offices around the world, including in Los Angeles. Beyond \u201cFortnite,\u201d the company is known as a leader in 3D engine technology and interactive entertainment.<\/p>\n

Over the years, Epic Games has steadily built itself into a major Hollywood player. Its 3D creation tool, the Unreal Engine, has been used to produce visual effects and virtual worlds for shows like Walt Disney Co. and Lucasfilm\u2019s \u201cThe Mandalorian\u201d and HBO\u2019s \u201cWestworld.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, Disney inked a deal with Epic Games <\/a>to create a games and entertainment universe with the company\u2019s brands, including Star Wars, Marvel and Pixar. Disney invested $1.5 billion in Epic Games for a minority stake in the company. Newly minted Disney Chief Executive Josh D\u2019Amaro managed the collaboration with Epic Games in his previous role as parks chief to create a Disney world within the popular \u201cFortnite\u201d game.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Sweeney plans to focus the company on building \u201cawesome Fortnite experiences\u201d with fresh content and continue to accelerate its developer tools like the Unreal Engine.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Epic Games, the developer of the popular video game \u201cFortnite,\u201d is laying off more than 1,000 employees and cutting $500 million in costs. Chief Executive Tim Sweeney announced the cuts Tuesday morning in a message to employees. He said it has nothing to do with AI and instead pointed to what he said was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2343984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2343983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Fortnite-maker-Epic-Games-lays-off-1000-employees.com2F352F5c2F7503905841bc98dbfa238e72.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2343983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2343985,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2343983\/revisions\/2343985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2343984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2343983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2343983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2343983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}