Fortnite Maker Epic Games is reducing its workforce by 870 jobs, roughly 16% of its staff, and is selling online music site Bandcamp, which was acquired in 2022.

The staff memo sent by Epic describing the changes says despite cutting costs and making one of the world’s most successful video games, the gaming giant is still “spending way more money than we earn”.

According to CEO Tim Sweeney: “We concluded that layoffs are the only way, and that doing them now and on this scale will stabilize our finances.”

“Epic folks around the world have been making ongoing efforts to reduce costs, including moving to net zero hiring and cutting operating spend on things like marketing and events. But we still ended up far short of financial sustainability.”

As for the Bandcamp sale, Sweeney said it would be sold off to Songtradr, a music marketplace company supporting artists.

Criticism surrounded the purchase of Bandcamp by Epic, with some wondering how the two businesses would fit together, this statement implies the scepticisms were right.

With global offices worldwide, Epic has not said where the staff cuts will occur, but Sweeney did say that two-thirds of the team cuts were “outside of core development”.

Epic, through the gaming engine Unreal Engine, has several popular games like Gears of War and Fortnite, which alone has approximately 400 million registered users.