{"id":1853268,"date":"2026-03-28T19:56:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1853268"},"modified":"2026-03-28T19:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:56:31","slug":"former-valve-writer-hits-out-at-epic-games-layoffs-its-not-like-theyre-a-publicly-traded-company-its-not-like-theres-some-need-to-hit-the-stock-market-thing-this-is-tim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1853268","title":{"rendered":"Former Valve writer hits out at Epic Games layoffs: &#8220;It&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re a publicly traded company. It&#8217;s not like there&#8217;s some need to hit the stock market thing. This is Tim&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<article class=\"article \" data-ads=\"true\" data-article-type=\"news\" data-article-group=\"news\" data-paywalled=\"false\" data-premium=\"false\" data-sponsored=\"false\" data-type=\"article\">\n<header class=\"article_header\" data-component=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"breadcrumbs\">\n<nav class=\"nav_breadcrumbs\" data-component=\"nav-breadcrumbs\" aria-label=\"Breadcrumb\">\n<ul class=\"nav-links\">\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Home<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/news\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      News<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<li>\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/fortnite\" data-active=\"false\"><br \/>\n                      Fortnite<br \/>\n                <\/a>\n            <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/nav><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_details\" id=\"main-content\">\n<h1 class=\"title\">Former Valve writer hits out at Epic Games layoffs: &#8220;It&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re a publicly traded company. It&#8217;s not like there&#8217;s some need to hit the stock market thing. This is Tim&#8221;<\/h1>\n<p class=\"strapline\">&#8220;I sure as hell wouldn&#8217;t go work at a place that I didn&#8217;t think respected me and wouldn&#8217;t reward that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"headline_asset\">\n<figure class=\"headline_image_wrapper\">\n<p>        <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"headline_image\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/fortnite-v-bucks.jpg?width=570&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;dpr=3&amp;auto=webp\" alt=\"V-Bucks pile\" loading=\"eager\" data-uri=\"fortnite-v-bucks.jpg\" data-lightbox width=\"570\" height=\"321\"><figcaption>\n          <span class=\"attribution\">Image credit: <cite>Epic Games<\/cite><\/span><br \/>\n        <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"metadata\">\n<div class=\"avatar\">\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Vikki Blake avatar\" src=\"https:\/\/assetsio.gnwcdn.com\/1533038852.jpg?width=2048&amp;height=2048&amp;fit=bounds&amp;quality=85&amp;format=jpg&amp;auto=webp\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"180\" height=\"179\"><\/p>\n<p>  <img alt=\"Vikki Blake avatar\" data-autosize=\"crop_lossy\" data-uri=\"1533038852.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1\" width=\"180\" height=\"179\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"text\">\n<div class=\"byline\">\n                  <span class=\"article_type\" data-slug=\"news\"><br \/>\n                    News<br \/>\n                  <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by\">by<\/span> <span class=\"author\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/authors\/vikki-blake\">Vikki Blake<\/a><\/span>                    <span class=\"job_title\"><br \/>\n                      Contributor<br \/>\n                    <\/span>\n            <\/div>\n<div class=\"published_at\">\nPublished on <time datetime=\"2026-03-28T19:56:31+00:00\">March 28, 2026<\/time>              <\/div>\n<div class=\"comments\">\n      <a class=\"comments__link comments-bubble\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/former-valve-writer-hits-out-at-epic-games-layoffs-its-not-like-theyre-a-publicly-traded-company-its-not-like-theres-some-need-to-hit-the-stock-market-thing-this-is-tim?view=comments\" rel=\"nofollow\"><br \/>\n          2 comments<br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"mypop-header-wrapper\">\n<p><button class=\"mypop-button button wide\" data-state=\"follow\" data-type=\"tag\" data-uuid=\"a8888b6d-5bc0-480f-a9ef-1f57b9dc36eb\" data-name=\"Fortnite\" data-follow-text=\"Follow Fortnite\" data-unfollow-text=\"Following Fortnite\" data-aria-follow-text=\"Follow Fortnite\" data-aria-unfollow-text=\"Following Fortnite\" data-popup=\"true\" data-force-login=\"true\" aria-label=\"Follow Fortnite\" title=\"Follow Fortnite\"><br \/>\n  Follow Fortnite<br \/>\n<\/button>          <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>Prolific former Valve writer, Chet Faliszek, has hit out at Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney, asking why anyone at Epic &#8220;should work hard&#8221; when staff have no agency and &#8220;the recent 1,000 job cuts didn&#8217;t come because of shareholder pressure&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>ICYMI, earlier this week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/fortnite-maker-epic-cuts-over-1000-jobs-as-battle-royale-suffers-slump\">Fortnite maker Epic Games announced it was cutting over 1,000 jobs<\/a> as its flagship battle royale game experienced a &#8220;downturn&#8221; in engagement. One developer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/fortnite-producer-comments-on-mass-layoffs-march-2026\">called it &#8220;a brutal day&#8221;<\/a> that left them &#8220;absolutely devastated&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Now, in response to the cuts, Faliszek said on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@chetfaliszek\/video\/7620991070448422174\">TikTok<\/a>: &#8220;It&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re a publicly traded company. It&#8217;s not like there&#8217;s some need to hit the stock market thing. This is Tim Sweeney. This is Tim,&#8221; (thanks, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/gaming-industry\/valve-veteran-slams-tim-sweeney-and-epic-games-for-laying-off-1000-people-while-making-as-much-money-as-possible-and-hey-tim-gabes-better-at-that-than-you\/\">PC Gamer<\/a>).<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"Fortnite - Official Chapter 7 Season 2: Showdown Teaser Trailer\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vKpGi_39028?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/vKpGi_39028\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">Fortnite &#8211; Official Chapter 7 Season 2: Showdown Teaser Trailer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Fortnite &#8211; Official Chapter 7 Season 2: Showdown Teaser Trailer.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vKpGi_39028\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;Can someone explain this to me? Why anybody who works at Epic should work hard? &#8216;Cos Epic just laid off 1,000 people, and it&#8217;s gonna shut down <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/fortnite\">Fortnite<\/a> Rocket Racing, Ballistic and Festival Battle stage, whatever that is. Who knows?&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But it&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re a publicly traded company. It&#8217;s not like there&#8217;s some need to hit the stock market thing. This is Tim Sweeney. This is Tim. A thousand people is more than [inaudible] who work at Valve.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And so Tim has gone from making games to making one game, spending all his time doing that and trying to make as much money as possible. And I guess well, hey, Tim, Gabe&#8217;s better at that than you. I don&#8217;t know what to tell you, man, because you stopped caring about making things. You make just one game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Faliszek said that, unlike other companies like Epic and EA, which he also singled out, when he worked at Valve, he had agency and ownership over his work.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t get why you remove that agency from people,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Like, why would you care? Why would you think that your hard work is going to be rewarded? I worked my ass off at Valve, and I cared about the things I made, and I cared about the people I worked with so much.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I&#8217;m at work, then I&#8217;m gonna work my ass off [&#8230;] Would I do that at Epic if they&#8217;re gonna treat me like that and just have layoffs like that and just\u2026 EA, same way. Like, &#8216;hey, great job, made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/battlefield-2025\">Battlefield 6<\/a>, we dethroned Call of Duty \u2013 here&#8217;s a pink slip&#8217;. And then they&#8217;re gonna say western developers are the problem, &#8216;cos they&#8217;re lazy or something, when you just\u2026 just cut them off at the knees, man.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Faliszek says that the reason Valve still employs so many of the same developers that worked on Half-Life is not just because &#8220;they were all rewarded handsomely&#8221; \u2013 although it seems that they were: &#8220;To be clear, I could retire, I worked my ass off at Valve, and I could retire today. I made more money than I&#8217;ll ever make,&#8221; Faliszek added \u2013 but because Valve knew that people needed to have agency.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Valve understood that. That&#8217;s how you get this thing where people care, people worked hard, people stayed because they felt they were improving what they were building on, that they had agency over and owned. Like, even now, I&#8217;m excited when I see the Valve announcement about the VR stuff and everything, that makes me happy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Would you be that way about Epic now? Everybody I know at Epic that was like &#8216;The Epic Guy&#8217; that had been there forever is gone. I mean, maybe there&#8217;s still some people there besides Tim, but the people that I liked and trusted? They&#8217;re gone. How do you build on that? I mean, Tim, you&#8217;re the one who decided to buy Bandcamp. I get what you&#8217;re trying to do, but come on, man. You raise V-buck prices to make ends meet, and now you&#8217;re gonna lay off a thousand people and wonder why the industry&#8217;s in the place it is?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I sure as hell wouldn&#8217;t go work at a place that I didn&#8217;t think respected me and wouldn&#8217;t reward that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"preferred-source\" data-component=\"preferred-source\">\nLove Eurogamer.net? Make us a <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\">Preferred Source on Google<\/a> and catch more of our coverage in your feeds.  <\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article_body\" data-component=\"article-content\">\n<div class=\"article_body_content article-styling\">\n<p>Prolific former Valve writer, Chet Faliszek, has hit out at Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney, asking why anyone at Epic &#8220;should work hard&#8221; when staff have no agency and &#8220;the recent 1,000 job cuts didn&#8217;t come because of shareholder pressure&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>ICYMI, earlier this week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/fortnite-maker-epic-cuts-over-1000-jobs-as-battle-royale-suffers-slump\">Fortnite maker Epic Games announced it was cutting over 1,000 jobs<\/a> as its flagship battle royale game experienced a &#8220;downturn&#8221; in engagement. One developer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/fortnite-producer-comments-on-mass-layoffs-march-2026\">called it &#8220;a brutal day&#8221;<\/a> that left them &#8220;absolutely devastated&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Now, in response to the cuts, Faliszek said on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@chetfaliszek\/video\/7620991070448422174\">TikTok<\/a>: &#8220;It&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re a publicly traded company. It&#8217;s not like there&#8217;s some need to hit the stock market thing. This is Tim Sweeney. This is Tim,&#8221; (thanks, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/gaming-industry\/valve-veteran-slams-tim-sweeney-and-epic-games-for-laying-off-1000-people-while-making-as-much-money-as-possible-and-hey-tim-gabes-better-at-that-than-you\/\">PC Gamer<\/a>).<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"video_wrapper youtube\">\n<a aria-label=\"Fortnite - Official Chapter 7 Season 2: Showdown Teaser Trailer\" class=\"video-facade full-size\" data-platform=\"youtube\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vKpGi_39028?autoplay=1\" title=\"Click to play video from YouTube\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cover image for YouTube video\" class=\"video-facade__image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/vKpGi_39028\/hqdefault.jpg\"><span class=\"video-facade__title\">Fortnite &#8211; Official Chapter 7 Season 2: Showdown Teaser Trailer<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/a>\n<\/div><figcaption>Fortnite &#8211; Official Chapter 7 Season 2: Showdown Teaser Trailer.<a class=\"video\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vKpGi_39028\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch on YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;Can someone explain this to me? Why anybody who works at Epic should work hard? &#8216;Cos Epic just laid off 1,000 people, and it&#8217;s gonna shut down <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/fortnite\">Fortnite<\/a> Rocket Racing, Ballistic and Festival Battle stage, whatever that is. Who knows?&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But it&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re a publicly traded company. It&#8217;s not like there&#8217;s some need to hit the stock market thing. This is Tim Sweeney. This is Tim. A thousand people is more than [inaudible] who work at Valve.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And so Tim has gone from making games to making one game, spending all his time doing that and trying to make as much money as possible. And I guess well, hey, Tim, Gabe&#8217;s better at that than you. I don&#8217;t know what to tell you, man, because you stopped caring about making things. You make just one game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Faliszek said that, unlike other companies like Epic and EA, which he also singled out, when he worked at Valve, he had agency and ownership over his work.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t get why you remove that agency from people,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Like, why would you care? Why would you think that your hard work is going to be rewarded? I worked my ass off at Valve, and I cared about the things I made, and I cared about the people I worked with so much.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"injection_placeholder\" data-position=\"1\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If I&#8217;m at work, then I&#8217;m gonna work my ass off [&#8230;] Would I do that at Epic if they&#8217;re gonna treat me like that and just have layoffs like that and just\u2026 EA, same way. Like, &#8216;hey, great job, made <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurogamer.net\/games\/battlefield-2025\">Battlefield 6<\/a>, we dethroned Call of Duty \u2013 here&#8217;s a pink slip&#8217;. And then they&#8217;re gonna say western developers are the problem, &#8216;cos they&#8217;re lazy or something, when you just\u2026 just cut them off at the knees, man.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Faliszek says that the reason Valve still employs so many of the same developers that worked on Half-Life is not just because &#8220;they were all rewarded handsomely&#8221; \u2013 although it seems that they were: &#8220;To be clear, I could retire, I worked my ass off at Valve, and I could retire today. I made more money than I&#8217;ll ever make,&#8221; Faliszek added \u2013 but because Valve knew that people needed to have agency.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Valve understood that. That&#8217;s how you get this thing where people care, people worked hard, people stayed because they felt they were improving what they were building on, that they had agency over and owned. Like, even now, I&#8217;m excited when I see the Valve announcement about the VR stuff and everything, that makes me happy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Would you be that way about Epic now? Everybody I know at Epic that was like &#8216;The Epic Guy&#8217; that had been there forever is gone. I mean, maybe there&#8217;s still some people there besides Tim, but the people that I liked and trusted? They&#8217;re gone. How do you build on that? I mean, Tim, you&#8217;re the one who decided to buy Bandcamp. I get what you&#8217;re trying to do, but come on, man. You raise V-buck prices to make ends meet, and now you&#8217;re gonna lay off a thousand people and wonder why the industry&#8217;s in the place it is?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I sure as hell wouldn&#8217;t go work at a place that I didn&#8217;t think respected me and wouldn&#8217;t reward that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Home News Fortnite Former Valve writer hits out at Epic Games layoffs: &#8220;It&#8217;s not like they&#8217;re a publicly traded company. It&#8217;s not like there&#8217;s some need to hit the stock market thing. This is Tim&#8221; &#8220;I sure as hell wouldn&#8217;t go work at a place that I didn&#8217;t think respected me and wouldn&#8217;t reward that.&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,253],"class_list":["post-1853268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-eurogamer-net"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1853268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1853268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1853268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1853268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1853268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}