I am a Producer at Epic Games, working on one of the most successful games ever made: Fortnite. For the last two years, my day-to-day routine has remained largely the same.
While Epic is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, I work remotely from my home office in San Francisco. To reduce friction with East Coast teams, I kept their hours. I typically started my day around 7:00 a.m. to align with the company’s “core hours.” I usually check Slack on my phone at 6:30 a.m. the moment I wake up, ensuring no emergencies require immediate action. If there are no fires to put out or morning meetings, I grab a shower and something to eat before officially starting by 7:30 a.m. This morning ritual played out again and again with little interruption.
On Tuesday, March 24th, I rolled out of bed to check Slack as usual. This time, I found I was signed out and couldn’t log in. I checked my email for outages and saw a notice stating Slack would be disabled until the afternoon. I missed a different, more important email that would have made things much clearer. Thinking nothing of it, I started my day normally — catching up on gaming news, eating breakfast, and showering. When I finally settled in to work, I noticed the email I should have seen an hour earlier:
Layoffs Today — Your Role is Impacted
Before I continue, I should say that this is not my first rodeo. Not by a long shot. I have been in the video game business for over 20 years. I’ve served as a Producer on games you’ve probably played, from Ubisoft’s South Park: The Fractured But Whole and EA’s The Sims 4 to 2K’s Mafia: The Old Country. I have released about 25 games during my career, ranging from small mobile titles to massive AAA live-service projects.
I have also been laid off seven times. Many of my friends and family view this as an unacceptable risk for any field. For game devs, it is the sad reality of doing what we love. While many of us have skills that transfer to other industries, we stay in games because of a deep passion for the medium. More importantly, the game industry is a place where we find belonging. Game devs are, generally speaking, weird people. We often have personalities that conflict with corporate expectations, a distaste for “normal” office culture, and interests that outside colleagues might find odd. The industry brims with the smartest people you’ll ever meet, but many would struggle in an environment that forces them to be someone they aren’t.
This context explains why we tolerate the industry’s negative sides. The business is notorious for “crunch” — a term for when management asks staff to work long hours and weekends for extended periods to hit a milestone. Diversity remains a challenge. Despite corporate lip service, one particular group still heavily dominates the field. Harassment from players is so common that many companies offer programs to help targeted employees scrub their presence from the internet. And while there is money to be made, equivalent roles in other fields pay far more generously than the game industry realistically can. Only those at the very top truly get rich.
Job Stability
From March 2022 to March 2026, the game industry suffered 45,000 layoffs. Roughly 33% of the workforce lost their jobs in the last two years alone. Of those, nearly half have not found new work within the industry. Furthermore, 24% of developers reported being laid off again less than two years after joining a new studio. California, where salaries are higher due to the cost of living, took a particularly hard hit; over 50% of layoffs originated in the Golden State.
Many factors caused these layoffs, and pointing to just one is disingenuous. During the Covid-19 pandemic, video games experienced exponential growth. People with sudden free time flocked to the medium, leading to a dramatic hiring explosion. We also saw heavy investment in gaming ecosystems, most notably from Microsoft, which aggressively pursued acquisitions like Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. These “good times” could not last, and a steep decline began in early 2022.
However, challenges were stewing long before the pandemic. The cost and time required to create AAA games have become unsustainable. Projects regularly cost over $300 million and require five to six years of development. Players feel this, too. It often feels like the PS5 era has lacked a consistent stream of quality software.
Other sectors struggled as well. Mobile gaming has stagnated, now dominated by high-budget gacha games from Korea and China. Web3, VR, and many Indie games have largely flopped. But the “elephant in the room” is the failure of the live-service title. Following the success of Fortnite and Apex Legends, publishers began trend-chasing. Around 2018, securing funding for a new project became nearly impossible unless it promised to be “the next Fortnite.” We are now seeing the ramifications of that shortsightedness as failures like Concord and Highguard mount. Consumers didn’t want these titles, and frankly, neither did the developers.
Real Life and Gaming
The industry currently waits with bated breath for Grand Theft Auto VI — the game many hope will “save gaming.” Some believe this game is so massive that it will single-handedly pull the industry from its slump, spurring PS5 Pro sales and a rush of investment capital. That theory only works if you ignore everything else.
There is a good chance you, the reader, are struggling financially. Despite government messaging, the cost of living continues to rise. Groceries are at an all-time high, housing is unaffordable, and wages have not kept pace with inflation. It’s messy. While entertainment typically weathers economic downturns, gaming is no longer a cheap refuge. Between battle passes, expensive hardware, subscriptions, and micro-transactions, the costs add up. Many gamers now compare the total cost of gaming to services like Netflix or Disney+ and find it lacking. Furthermore, the industry isn’t releasing “must-have” titles at a high enough rate; a recent study revealed that over 92% of PC gamers are playing titles older than ten years.
On the industry side, we face the consequences of changing times. The PlayStation 5 price increased nearly six years after its release. The cost of components like RAM and graphics cards has skyrocketed as tech companies buy up hardware for AI initiatives. Recent tariffs wrecked the supply chains powering console production — costs that ultimately pass to the customer. Meanwhile, gamers have largely rejected cost-saving measures like AI-assisted development.
Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Not really. Component prices are stabilizing as we approach a potential AI bubble burst, but the demand for advanced hardware will remain high. I don’t foresee prices actually dropping. The PS6 and the next Xbox will likely cost near or over $1,000.
In truth, few people seem to want new consoles. Developers don’t want them, and customers don’t want them. With the exception of Nintendo, whose Switch was clearly showing its age, we haven’t seen meaningful gains in fidelity that justify new hardware. Most people aren’t jazzed about raytracing when they are still playing ten-year-old games.
However, the success of “AA” studios offers some hope. Smaller teams focusing on niche titles, like the creators of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, prove that limited budgets can still yield success. Even Nintendo has successfully kept development costs low, though they struggle to produce enough content to support their hardware at the necessary level.
Today is Your Last Day at Epic
The email was clear: my role was impacted, and my access to internal services would end within hours. I was invited to an 8:00 a.m. meeting to learn the terms of separation. Because this impacted over a thousand people, there were no one-on-one meetings. In fact, the company let go of both my manager and my HR representative. It was just one massive call.
I woke my partner to tell her the news. I considered waiting until she started her day, but I knew she’d notice I wasn’t at my desk. Her initial concern about health insurance quickly shifted to anger. “WTF,” she said, “Isn’t Fortnite literally the biggest thing in gaming?”
I joined the call and listened to CEO Tim Sweeney provide words of encouragement that sounded nearly identical to the public press statement. I found some comfort in the generous severance and benefits. In the background, my phone buzzed non-stop as former colleagues furiously texted to figure out who was left. For a brief moment, I remembered the legacy features and vendor connections that only I knew how to manage. I felt I should ensure some continuity for the studio. Then I thought, fuck that. They made it clear I had no obligation to Epic. I had to accept that they no longer saw my role as Producer, a caretaker for the teams, as necessary. I felt backstabbed by a company I had just given an unpaid Saturday to for a live event.
After the meeting, I shut my laptop. I decided today was a day for video games. I had recently started Death Stranding 2, which a (now former) teammate worked on; I wanted to see her work for myself. I made a half-assed LinkedIn post to announce I was “impacted” and then consciously chose to avoid doom-scrolling.
As I delivered packages as Sam Porter Bridges, my phone vibrated constantly. Friends and family had seen the news. I laughed when I realized my layoff was featured in a FOX News article on the front page. An ex-girlfriend called after seeing the news, and my sister-in-law reached out as well. I appreciated the love, but I just wanted to play Death Stranding. I committed to delivering packages, even while feeling uncomfortable with how much Kojima-san features Elle Fanning’s feet in his latest nonsensical epic. Delivering those packages gave me something I could actually control.
Eventually, the best part of the industry snapped me out of my mood: the shared experience. Fellow devs flooded my inbox with support, offering shoulders to cry on or introductions to recruiters. A message from my “work bestie” from my Ubisoft days—”I’m here if you want to vent”—nearly moved me to tears. In the following days, the industry rallied. People were determined to help those going through a struggle they had all experienced before.
Through the rest of the week, I found myself re-engaging. I began sharing the stories of other impacted coworkers, including one facing a terminal illness who can no longer receive life insurance. I shared job postings and leveraged my network to connect people with recruiters. I offered support to a developer who had been job-hunting for two years while doing Instacart to afford insulin, and another who had to move back in with his parents at 45. These people were me, and I was them. We were in this together.
By Friday, overwhelmed by the compassion I had witnessed, I stepped away to finish Death Stranding. It is a game about building connections. I realized that all game devs are Sam Porter Bridges—struggling through a bleak wasteland, guided only by the connections we make. Just with a little bit less foot fetish stuff.
