Tim Sweeney says Epic Games is now 'financially sound' after last year's layoffs and Bandcamp fumble

Tim Sweeney speaks at the 2024 Unreal Fest in Seattle. — (Image credit: Epic Games)

Like so many tech companies, Epic Games grew aggressively at the start of the 2020s and then suddenly declared that it had made a mistake. The Fortnite and Unreal Engine maker cut over 800 jobs last year and maimed and sold off Bandcamp, a website it had purchased just a year earlier.

"For a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators," Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said at the time. "I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic."

Epic already takes no Unreal Engine royalty fees on Unreal Engine games purchased through the Epic Games Store (when using Epic's payment processing). But even for sales made off EGS, such as on Steam, it will now reduce the Unreal Engine royalty fee from 5% to 3.5% so long as the developer also released the game on EGS on day one. That applies to any platform where both the game and EGS exist: For lots of games that'll just be PC, but Epic now also has mobile versions of EGS in certain regions, and continues to fight with Apple and Google over its desire to sell mobile games without paying their fees.

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Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.