“Fortnite” manufacturer Epic Games is laying off 16% of its employees

Epic Games, the developer behind the popular online game “Fourteen days“Lays off 830 employees, the company announced on Thursday.

The North Carolina-based company, which also developed the widely used Unreal Engine game development software, said in an email to staff that the layoffs represented about 16% of workers.

Tim Sweeney, the company’s chief executive, told employees that Epic “has been spending far more money than we have been making for some time.”

“I have long been optimistic that we could make this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that was unrealistic,” Sweeney wrote in a memo posted on the company’s website.

About two-thirds of the layoffs occurred in teams outside of core development, he said in the email.

The company is also selling its music program Bandcamp to Songtradr, a music licensing platform. About 250 employees were eliminated in the divestment of Bandcamp and the spinoff of much of SuperAwesome, a child-safe technology company.

“As ‘Fortnite’ begins to grow again, growth will be driven primarily by content from creators with significant revenue share,” Sweeney said. “The success of the Creator ecosystem is a major achievement, but it also represents a major structural change in our economy.”

Laid-off employees will be offered six months of base pay, and workers in the United States, Canada and Brazil will also receive six months of paid health care.

“Saying goodbye to people who helped build Epic is a terrible experience for everyone,” Sweeney said.

The company said in a post on its website that there would be no further layoffs. Epic will continue to hire employees for “critical roles.”