Layoff
Mar 2026Epic announced more than 1,000 layoffs after a Fortnite engagement downturn; Tim Sweeney said the company was spending significantly more than it was making and aimed to save about $500 million.
Company research
Public company, workplace, funding, and market signals
Overview
Epic Games is a privately held interactive entertainment and 3D engine company founded in 1991 by Tim Sweeney. Its core ecosystem spans Fortnite, Unreal Engine, the Epic Games Store, and Epic Online Services.
Primary product
Fortnite and Unreal Engine
Founded
1991
Headquarters
Cary, North Carolina, United States
Team size
1001-5000
Industry
Computer Games
Sub-industry
Interactive entertainment / 3D engine technology
Offices
Cary, North Carolina, United States (HQ)
Detroit, Michigan, United States
Novato, California, United States
Los Angeles, California, United States
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Funding
Stage
late-stage private
Total raised
$8.6B
Latest round
Corporate minority investment · Feb 2024
Latest amount
$1.5B
People & investors
Leadership
Founder and CEO
Vice President and Co-Founder
President
Work & culture
Epic presents itself as high-performance, innovation-driven, collaborative, and community-focused. Public pages emphasize a focused working environment, selective hiring, and teams building both games and engine technology.
Visa sponsorship
Limited
Compensation
Public compensation signals include competitive intern pay and generous severance in layoffs. Epic said impacted employees in 2026 would receive at least four months of base pay plus healthcare continuation; in 2023 it said affected employees would receive six months of base pay and healthcare coverage.
Benefits
Competitive internship pay
Epic swag
Memorable intern events
Year-round internship opportunities
Product & market
Pricing
Consumer content is largely free-to-play with in-game monetization. Unreal Engine uses a royalty-based model above a revenue threshold for many commercial uses, and the Epic Games Store uses a revenue-share model (88%/12% after the first $1M per product per year on payments processed by Epic).
Differentiators
- —Fortnite's massive audience and creator ecosystem
- —Unreal Engine's cross-industry real-time 3D adoption
- —End-to-end stack across creation, distribution, and online services
- —Source access and developer tooling via GitHub and Epic Developer Community
- —Strong positioning in both games and non-gaming 3D production
- —Developer-friendly store economics and royalty waivers on Epic-processed transactions
Technology
Unreal Engine
Scale & contact
Estimated revenue
$5B-$6B
Estimated monthly visits
128.2M
Traffic estimate as of Jun 2026
Signals & risks
Layoff
Sep 2023Epic laid off about 830 employees, roughly 16% of the workforce, and said two-thirds of the cuts were outside core development.
Other
Sep 2023Epic divested Bandcamp to Songtradr and spun off most of SuperAwesome as part of a major restructuring.
Latest news
Reuters · Mar 2026
Reuters reported that Epic would cut more than 1,000 jobs after Fortnite engagement fell; Tim Sweeney said the company was spending more than it was making and sought $500 million in savings.
Epic Games · Feb 2024
Epic and Disney announced a multiyear collaboration and Disney's $1.5 billion equity investment in Epic.
Epic Games · Sep 2023
Epic announced about 830 layoffs, Bandcamp's divestiture to Songtradr, and the spin-off of most of SuperAwesome.
Epic Games · Apr 2022
Epic announced a $2 billion funding round led by Sony and KIRKBI, valuing the company at $31.5 billion.
Open Positions
148 jobs at Epic Games
Senior Backend Engineer
On-siteEngineering SpecialistBLANK,BLANK,Multiple Locations3d ago
On-site