Epic Games is laying off about 830 employees, divesting Bandcamp
Epic Games is laying off about 830 employees, divesting Bandcamp
"Fortnite" maker Epic Games is laying off about 830 employees, or 16% of its staff, and divesting online music platform Bandcamp, the company said on Thursday.
It's so cool how they're shedding employees when their game store doesn't even have basic features like product reviews
I really don't understand how people still hang on to defending EGS. It's been shit since release, it's still missing basic features years later, and it's been found doing tons of shady shit.
I'm all for more competition in these spaces, because, you know, competition pushes the companies to one up each other and build compelling features. But EGS is just blatantly missing shit and is explicitly user-hostile by buying exclusivity to their vastly inferior platform. Steam hasn't had to react at all because they're still so far ahead, and Epic is just fucking trolling users by forcing them onto their platform without working cloud saves or even non-buggy installs.
The irony that they flag-wave "user choice" while doing this just totally baffles me.
You don't have to love them but they're still the closest thing to any competition at all. You can complain but they're most likely to improve if they're profitable, and it would definitely hurt end users if they shut down. I get the "buying exclusivity" complaint, but honestly it's fucking impossible to get a foothold, I would do the same thing if I were them.
Most of these companies hire people constantly, then at one point, cut the people they don't find fit or are productive enough.
It's a continual cycle and the "normal" in the industry.
Don't get me wrong, I hate it's the "normal", but it is.
Maybe giving away games every Thursday is hurting them /s.
I hope that stays 100% of my library with them is all the free games. My bought games are on Steam.
fuck whoever originally owned bandcamp for selling it to epic. I have a really bad feeling about them selling it to a music licensing firm. I'm wondering if a lot of musicians are going to find a change in TOS that signs copyright over to songtradr or something.
Seriously, this fucking sucks. So likely to see all the good things about Bandcamp disappear.
whelp, grab those free thursday games while you still can
If they fold, will I even be able to access the games at all anymore?
Bought bandcamp just to shelf it? Thanks.
that's not what the word means, they are selling it to Songtradr.
I know they're not literally throwing it out, if that's what you thought I meant. I know they're selling it to someone else, but how often does this result in a good outcome? I'm predicting this is the start of the end of bandcamp. It wasn't even good to begin with, but it was the only unified place to buy music.
I found this article which states
The company is also selling Bandcamp to a music licensing company called Songtradr...
I didn't know about their ownership in the first place.
Yep, that sale was relatively new. Like, in the last year and a half.
Did that with Infinity Blade (Chair) as well because it was ‘competing for users’ apparently.
I stopped using Bandcamp when Epic bought them. Looks like they've sold it to Songtradr, who also bought 7digital (another music store that offered DRM-free FLAC files).
I've never heard of Songtradr. Does anyone have info on their history or ethics? I would love to have Bandcamp back as an artist-friendly, customer-friendly, relatively independent source of music, but I don't want to get my hopes up.
https://rocknerd.co.uk/2023/09/28/bandcamp-has-been-sold-to-songtradr/
They're making quite a lot of acquisitions, despite Bandcamp unionising earlier this year. It's one of the biggest licencing companies in the world, so it probably won't be great for the current services of Bandcamp when Songtradr wants to start monetising its users more meaningfully to make back the acquisition cost and break even.
Maybe good growth, maybe an attempt to gauge users as deep as possible before they just shutter the company. Could go either way.
I had no idea Bandcamp belonged to Epic Games ! To this day it's my favorite platform to buy music.
I could honestly care less about the video games, but the Bandcamp news is devastating. Is there anywhere else where you can buy lossless DRM-free music?
Gaming is worth FOUR times of movies. If you for some reason think mobile gaming is not gaming, it is still worth TWICE of Hollywood. You should care more about gaming. Hollywood is dying and AI will make it die faster. Gaming is the future of entertaiment.
Buddy look, I have played video games my entire life, but video games are not going to ever be the only form of entertainment.
Music has always, ALWAYS held the highest rung of entertainment and expression in my life. I could give less a shit about the hole Epic Games is digging for themselves.
Without music, I legitimately have no reason to live. The creation and observation of music has given me motivation and purpose in life in ways that nothing else has ever done.
Shitty about Bandcamp. I hope it turns out ok.
I don't really have any sympathy for people working for epic.
They knew what they were getting into.
I know a few people who work for Epic games, and generally they are treated incredibly well. Good pay, good benefits, still able to work from home... Their experience has been pretty much all positive.
However, Epic has been hemorrhaging money for a few years now. As successful as the Unreal Engine and Fortnite are, they've aquired half a dozen companies over the last few years, and offer an insane amount of free content between the Epic Games Store and the Unreal marketplace. They they acquire exclusives for their platform, they host tournaments with prize pools in the millions, and they have been trying to build a strong reputation as a service for gamers and developers that treats them well. It never seemed to balance out though, probably because people just were never really into buying games from them.
I truly don't get the people that outright hate them though, even for their exclusivity grabs. I also might be mildly biased since I know how much worse devs are treated at other companies.
Really? I've heard Epic Games employees described as just 'bodies.'
I believe the quote was something like, "I don't care, just get us more bodies" to work on fortnite. James Stephanie Sterling did a video on it.
I'm not sure who you've been talking to, but your entire post reads like corporate bullshit. Epic sucks because their service is worse than Steam and tries to convince people like you it's not.
Hemorrhaging money? What the fuck? Have you seen how much people are making at Epic? Dev says the pay is good, what do you think his higher ups are getting paid?
Like, only a legitimate fool would think Epic 'hemorrhaging money' is any cause for concern. No, any inconsistencies in where money is going stems solely from who they're paying. I.e. people doing as little work as possible while making as much money as possible.
Sorry this needs to be explained to you, but I truly think you have been taken for a ride. If not, then you're trying to take others for one.
Gonna block you now though, brother. After reading your post, I don't believe you have anything to offer me and are just going to double-down on Epic being a company worth supporting. See ya.