Good news for some
Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney says the firm is now “financially sound” following a tumultuous year which, announced last September, involved the company shedding some 830 to 870 staff. That’s despite the Fortnite and Unreal Engine developer making billions in revenue in the interim, which is estimated to grow an additional 30% over the next year. Sweeney made the remarks yesterday at Unreal Fest 2024, as relayed by GamesIndustry.biz.
In addition, Sweeney revealed that Fortnite managed a new peak milestone over the holidays, reaching a frankly astonishing 110 million monthly active users. Released in 2018, the undeniably enduring game managed to pull almost 45 million players in a single day with Fortnite OG.
The reduction of around 16% of its workforce comes at a transitional time for the company, which has (admittedly) been very successful at capitalising on Fortnite’s explosive initial rise and continued dominance. These days, as IGN chronicles, Epic Games is more concerned with the lower margins but far safer returns allowed by its content creation platforms and user revenue sharing. At Unreal Fest, Sweeney crowed: “I’m happy to tell you now that the company is financially sound and that Fortnite and the Epic Games Store have hit new records in concurrency and success.”
Are you surprised by Fortnite’s staying power and Epic’s ability to keep so many people playing? Are you glad to know the company’s having a banger year? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source gamesindustry.biz, via ign.com]
Khayl Adam is Push Square’s roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.
