Another day, another series of layoffs in the western video game industry. It's a tale as old as time, but this time it's Fortnite. They're laying off people at Fortnite. Really? That's right, folks. Times are tough these days. Real tough. Especially if you make $6 billion a year. That's what they made in 2025. Epic Games. and you know, they might as well just be in the gutter puking on themselves, you know, falling into trash cans, eating garbage. Uh they've they've truly hit rock bottom and can barely afford to keep the lights on anymore. I mean, for like it's it's they're going bankrupt.

And that's why in order to save just a little bit more money, they have laid off over 1,000 employees, some of whom were instrumental in the success of Fortnite. We're talking guys who designed some of the most iconic skins in the game. Skins that even I know and I don't play Fortnite. It goes to show you that no good deed goes unpunished. And what makes the timing of this exceptionally suspect? Well, it's always suspect, but they recently raised the price on V-Bucks. I you not, their reasoning for it was due to operating costs. Check this out. The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot and we're raising prices to help pay the bills. This is literally on their website. It's just, yes, we need help

paying the bills. They're not even trying to lie anymore, man. It's I'm greedy. You know who else has been trying to pay the bills? Microsoft and Xbox and Nvidia and basically every tech company. Cuz every everything is, you know, they're raising the prices. I like how this is it. The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot. It's like such a juvenile sentence, if you know what I mean. Lacks any reasoning or professionalism or detail. Just, yeah, we need more money. Plain and simple. Give us more money. But first, I'd like to thank today's sponsor, Chime, the number one most loved banking app. Saving money is one

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game industry unless you're at the top and you make all the decisions about who gets fired and nobody can decide if you get fired or not. That's where you want to be, top of the ladder, so you can push that sucker down like Leon and then jump out the window. I always love how when companies announce like price increases or mass layoffs, it's they always have to package it with this sort of like, guys, we really need money, but things are looking great. Yes. We're firing a,000 employees and there's amazing things on the horizon. In any case, Tim, you could pay all 10,000 employees 100k salary a year and still have $5 billion left. No, we just we got to get rid of you. I don't I need more

money. I am once again reminding you of this Storu IA quote. If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease. I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world. We don't think like that over here. We think immediate short-term gain. And I really hate that mentality because while it seems like Nintendo has never been doing better just in terms of financial success, you don't hear about layoffs at Nintendo. You know what I mean? When was the last time Nintendo laid people off? They don't do that over there. We need to adopt that kind of

culture. It's it's not just the people that get laid off and how that's kind of up to them and then, you know, a thousand people having to find a new job in the game industry. It's like bleeding all of that talent uh shattering company morale. And also, what does that say to everyone else that works in the game industry in the Western game industry when it's like you created one of the most important Fortnite skins? Like, you helped build this company to a point where it's making $6 billion a year and we got to let you go. It just it really doesn't inspire much uh faith in the industry or, you know, for younger generations to want to be game designers, at least to get jobs with some of these AAA publishers, right? It

it just seems like the uh the indie scene has never been doing better for obvious reasons. Now, this post is obviously being a little hyperbolic, but it's meant to point out just the sheer absurdity of the disparity between his sole singular net worth and all of these people who got laid off for undefined reasons. But speaking of, I think someone should do a study on the correlation between inshitification and billionaireism. I feel like both of these conditions are intertwined. Everything is getting worse and more expensive and a handful of rich a-holes are getting obnoxiously more and more wealthy and it's like and everyone's raising prices and everyone's getting laid off but things have never been better.

Is there anyone not raising prices right now? Like anyone besides Valve and Costco by the way up here that's our Pacific Northwest hospitality right there. You're welcome for Valve and Costco and that Kirkland signature. Anyway, sorry to go all communist on you, but the greed of Tim Sweeney was insatiable. So, the gaming gods placed upon him a terrible curse. In every picture, his face would shrink and his neck would get fatter. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, I don't typically like to make fun of people's appearances, but this guy. By the way, I found this Reddit post. It just says, "Fuck Epic for Dummies. A quick breakdown, mind you." and uh

compiling uh what looks to be about 40 different links. So yeah, we'll put that in the description below if you want to check this out. Now, let's see what Epic had to say. This note was sent to Epic employees. This was March 24th, so few days ago. Today we're laying off over 1,000 Epic employees. I'm sorry we're here again. Me, too. I'm sorry we're here again. Hey, sorry. What the man? The downturn in Fortnite engagement that started in 2025 means we're spending significantly more than we're making. You made $6 billion in 2025, though. These corporate responses are always so easy to just tear apart because they're they're

trying to justify the unjustifiable. They're trying to rationalize that which can't really be rationalized. It's all a cover for greed at the end of the day. And we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded. $5.5 billion just isn't enough, guys. I only have 12 yachts. I want 13. This layoff together with over $500 million of identified cost savings in contracting, marketing, and closing some open rolls puts us in a more stable place. You see, nowhere does it say what the actual cost of running Fortnite is, right? Because what are your profit margins? Do we know what the downturn in Fortnite engagement dog? It says in 2025, Epic Game Store achieved record growth with 1.16 billion spent by

users, a 6% increase. And you're saving $500 million more dollars. How what are these cost savings? Contracting, marketing. Dude, someone posted they really did fire the marketing team. Why the are they shooting at trees? Yeah, they announced the Lola Bunny skin. Yeah, why are they shooting at trees? That is really funny. What the Okay, so just as a side note, I don't really think about this when it comes to marketing, but you know how you uh if you watch a Call of Duty trailer or a Halo trailer or really any firstperson shooter, Battlefield, it's heavily scripted to show off the most cinematic gameplay, right? That's kind of like you don't think about it from a gamer's perspective. You're just

kind of like, "Oh, that looks cool." But when they don't do that and it's just Lola bunny shooting trees and you know you'd expect more action or something. Also, this is a very dangerous skin to add for millennials. So yeah, they clearly fired their marketing team. Some of the challenges we're facing are industry-wide challenges, slower growth, weaker spending, and tougher cost economics, current consoles selling less than last generations, and games competing for time against other increasingly engaging forms of entertainment. You say slower growth and weaker spending, but that just does not at the end of the day, you made six billion in 2025. So, it's like the arrow not only has to go up, it has to go up way more. I really hate

this mentality because honestly, like any growth is good in my opinion. Despite Fortnite remaining one of the most successful games in the world, we've had challenges delivering consistent Fortnite magic with every season. Is that true? I don't play Fortnite. How have the updates been? We're only in the early stages of returning to mobile and optimizing Fortnite for the world's billions of smartphones. And in being the industry's vanguard, we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle, which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers. All developers accept the ones we laid off. Also, yeah, this is God, I just wish companies could be honest and not always have to write PR speak for shareholders,

right? It's Yeah, we've had challenges, but we're optimizing Fortnite for billions of smartphones. We've taken a lot of bullets. We're the industry vanguard. We're so great. This is going to pay off for all of us. Keep investing. Since it's a thing now, I should note that the layoffs aren't related to AI. So, that probably means they are. To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can. We want as many as we can except for these thousand. I just What we need to do now is clear. Build awesome Fortnite experiences with fresh seasonal content. Accelerate developer tools without the developers who know how to use them. With greater stability and capability as we evolve from UEIE 5 to

UEFN to UEI 6. We've got huge launch plans towards the end of the year. This isn't our first time being here. Epic survived uphevils in the 90s with the move from 2D to 3D. Dog, that was like three decades ago. I mean, what does this have to do with now? This is not recent. You're talking about the '9s and 2012. Each time we rebuilt our foundations and earned a renewed leadership position. So, you're rebuilding your foundation is what you're saying. I don't know if that's a good thing. At Epic, we pride ourselves in only hiring the industry's best. So, it is very painful to part with so many

talented people. The folks impacted by the layoffs will receive a severance package that includes at least four months of base pay with more based on tenure. We're also extending epic paid healthcare coverage. We'll have a company meeting Thursday to talk about the road map in more detail. So, pretty awful uh response here from Tim. Really not convincing in the slightest. Again, all these posts are really just written for shareholders. Uh I a regular, you know, gaming fan is going to read this and just be like, "Yeah, it's just nonsense." So, I want to check out this article from Polygon. Epic

layoffs are a bad sign. Analyst says, "If Fortnite can't make it, what chance do other games have?" According to statistics database Statista, Epic Games generated 6 billion. And Fortnite continues to top the charts for player engagement on both PlayStation and Xbox. Quote, "We have seen a dip in average hours per US Fortnite players across both PlayStation and Xbox consoles. However, it remains the game with the highest monthly active user base across both platforms. So, ex just excuse me for one second. One second here, folks.

You are the most played game on Xbox and PlayStation, and it's still not enough. Man, this guy sucks. This Tim Sweeney bastard. Why is every tech CEO just some greedy old bastard who's never happy with the ridiculous amounts of money he has? So, whatever downturn they're talking about isn't enough to knock it below the number one spot on PlayStation and Xbox. Sweeney also says, "We're spending significantly more than we're making. Literally, how? Show your work. What math have you done to come to this conclusion? What are you spending over $6 billion on?" In the past, Sweeney has been conspicuously nonchalant about losing hundreds of million of dollars on the Epic Games

Store in order to win back market share from Steam. Now, let's take a look at his Twitter response. Sad news for Epic Games. Hope the efforts to turn things around can work. This comes from Dean Takahashi, who, if memory serves, was the Cuphead developer. Tim says, "In the coming days, employers will see a stream of résumés of once-ina-lifetime quality folks. An important thing to understand is that Epic never lowered our hiring standards as we grew, and the layoff wasn't a performance-based right sizing, as companies call it nowadays. It's a sound bet that anyone with Epic Games on their resume is in the top few% of their discipline. And I said, "These once-in-a-lifetime employees were so

incredible that we fired them all." So Epic has no respect for its talented workforce. That's what you're saying? Enlightening stuff, Tim. Mega ratio. Go follow me on Twitter, by the way. Link in the description. And if you enjoy this content, you're not already subscribed, subscribe to ActMan TV. Click that subscribe button. off, you sack of I love these memes or it's just some guy shooting himself and their competitor just you cutting 5% of your salary would be 100 times what I lost financially. And I bet it's even more. I'm sorry, but today you've completely ruined Epic and Fortnite's reputation. You can't just

lay off over a thousand employees, many of whom had been with the company for more than seven years or were exceptionally talented. You've made a huge mistake and you're only going to lo end up losing everything you've built. One can only hope. Yeah. It's just it's just this dichotomy of you cuz you can't come out and say like, "Oh yeah, we fired these employees cuz they were all worthless pieces of and we wanted to save money." But it's just interesting how they always have to spin it the same way. We're laying off these people. We're not going to say anything bad about them cuz how would that make us look? But we obviously don't give a enough to just keep them on the

payroll, keep them doing what they're doing. This comes from Alex Mure. Oh. Oh, he blocked me. A lot of sorryries today hearing about how talented we all are, how thankful people are. All of it is really supportive. The thing I'm hating is people saying they can't wait to see what I do next. I already was doing what I wanted. I don't want another job. I wanted my job. That's profound. this. I think it's important to look at the people affected by this. Like, of course, we're going to villainize Tim. He's the bad guy in this situation, but it's important to highlight the victims and like how this affects them on a personal level.

Fortnite staff who survived yesterday's layoffs say they're unable to comprehend the impact on the game's future this year and beyond. Holy That is not a good sign. What? What comes next is very hard and painful. Vitali name Nimushin, a character art director who designed some of Fortnite's earliest characters, including its default mascot, Jonesy, was also laid off, as was Devon Connors, the long-standing community manager at Rocket League Studios Psionics. Fortnite gameplay producer Robbie Williams, who survived the layoffs, described yesterday as a brutal day at Epic. What comes next is very hard and painful for those now jobless, but also the company's remaining staff who will push on without

1,000 of their colleagues. Like, that's crazy. a thousand people. How many of those you may have known in the office? Like I said, just complete restructuring of company culture and values and how that affects morale. We cannot even fully understand what kind of impacts this will have on the game for the rest of the year and likely beyond. Please be patient with us as we navigate this tough time and do our best in spite of these truly gut-wrenching losses. So, it doesn't doesn't really sound like uh even those still working at Epic are happy about these layoffs. Yeah, this comes from uh Evan Kenny. Guess who got laid off today? I am genuinely so confused and bewildered.

Like, I spent the past week debugging the rivalry system while recovering from pneumonia. And just in the past few days, I've had multiple directors tell me how much they appreciate everything I do. wild, man. 126,000 likes. I had done so much for this company and our game. So many late nights, so many weekends, so many live events and competitive events and new features and new seasons. solid performance reviews every time with multiple people mentioning how critical I am and what an impact I make across multiple teams just to be thrown out. I don't get it. Insane. 42,000 likes on a follow-up tweet. It's just you don't get it because you're not a greedy And this is I think what I truly

despise about our culture is that the worker is not valued anymore. the trade and the discipline and the skill that one has to develop. It's just not valued anymore. At least it doesn't appear to be in the AAA gaming space. That's why that's why double A gaming and indie is the way moving forward cuz all these AAA publishers and studios are just are they're all killing themselves. I don't know why. Well, I know why. It's insatiable greed. It's that curse of the Aztec gold. Jonesy, by the way, like you should recognize this character even if you have not played Fortnite. He's literally been on the main menu like forever.

Yeah, you can see the responses down below. This is so I'm genuinely sorry. You got laid off. What are they doing? I'm sorry to hear this. This is the state of AAA gaming. And while it may seem like everything is getting worse and shittier, well, it is, but uh indie and AA gaming is going strong, I think, in Europe and Asia is where a lot of the games that I'm interested in are being produced. Uh it seems like just American game developers in general, like EA is going to be bought out by Saudi Arabia. Xbox is down to There's just something wrong with our culture uh where we just don't

value the talent anymore. everyone's disposable, everyone. And that's not how businesses should be run and that's not how gaming companies should be run because it just it ends up with worse products and every everyone's unhappy. So, Epic Games has uh fallen off quite tremendously here. Really shooting themselves in the face. And uh once again, Gabe Newwell does nothing and wins. So, what do you think about the recent Epic Games layoffs? Let me know your thoughts and opinions in the comments below. Like the video if you enjoyed it and subscribe to ActMan TV for more awesome content. All right, everyone. That's all I got for today.

This is the Fortnite man signing out. Peace.