Hasta La Gadget!

Fortnite maker Epic Games is laying off 16 percent of its staff — or about 830 employees. CEO Tim Sweeney said in an open letter to sent employees that Epic Games has been spending “way more money” than it earns. “We concluded that layoffs are the only way,” he wrote “and that doing them now and on this scale will stabilize our finances.”

For those impacted by the layoffs, the company says it will offer a severance package that includes six months base pay and healthcare. Epic Games is also offering to accelerate employee’s stock option vesting schedule through 2024, while giving two additional years to exercise the options. About two-thirds of the layoffs affected teams outside of core development.

Sweeney wrote that Epic had been making an effort to reduce costs by not only freezing hiring but also by cutting spending on things like marketing and events. And while the metaverse is still in a conceptual phase, Sweeney said he wants the company to focus on developing infrastructure for its games to exist in the metaverse ecosystem. For example, Epic teamed up with LEGO to build an “immersive digital experience” for kids.

Epic also said it is divesting Bandcamp, an online music platform it acquired in mid-2022; it’s coordinating a sale to Songtradr, a music licensing platform. SuperAwesome, a kid-friendly developer Epic acquired back in 2020, is being broken apart and partially spun out as well. Its advertising business will become an independent company, while the Kids Web Services segment and the parent verification and consent management toolsets will remain part of Epic.

While these moves to cut spending may help Epic Games stave off pressure from investors like Tencent and Sony, its flagship game Fortnite remains banned from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, which will continue to impact its bottom line. Not to mention the $520 million dollars in penalties it has incurred from the FTC and its efforts to have the Supreme Court overturn a ruling that cleared of antitrust violations.

Still, Sweeney says Epic’s “prospects for the future are strong,” thanks to Fortnite and the Unreal Engine. Next week, the company will be hosting Unreal Fest, and while some products and initiatives will continue to land on schedule, Sweeney says some may fall behind due to restrictions on resources. “We’re ok with the schedule tradeoff if it means holding on to our ability to achieve our goals, get to the other side of profitability and become a leading metaverse company,” he said in the memo.

The company says it will not cut any funding for its core businesses and it will continue to invest in games with Fortnite first-party development, as well as the Fortnite creator ecosystem.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/epic-games-is-laying-off-16-percent-of-its-workforce-and-selling-bandcamp-211830580.html?src=rss

Bethesda appears to have shadow-dropped (intentionally or not) a new mobile game set in a familiar universe. The Elder Scrolls: Castles is a building management game reminiscent of Fallout Shelter. The title, first spotted by Reddit user u/tracteurman (via GamesRadar), is available for Android but not iOS.

The Elder Scrolls: Castles tasks you with controlling a castle — and your dynasty. “Oversee your subjects as the years come and go, families grow, and new rulers take the throne,” the game’s Play Store description reads. It describes a real-life day in the game covering a year within the virtual world.

Its gameplay involves familiar staples of building management sims: customize the castle, add and expand rooms, decorate, place monuments and assign workers to stations. In addition, you can create heroes to embark on “epic quests” to battle against classic Elder Scrolls foes.

Bethesda

The Play Store listing’s “What’s new” section says, “Welcome to early access,” which at least suggests the game may have been intended as a closed beta. However, it’s downloadable and playable to anyone with a Play Store account at the time of publication. We reached out to Bethesda to find out whether the game’s silent publication was intentional, and we’ll update this article if we find out more.

The Elder Scrolls: Castles is free in the Google Play Store. It’s rated “Teen” for violence and suggestive themes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-elder-scrolls-castles-is-like-fallout-shelter-but-skyrim-212404049.html?src=rss

It’s only been about a year since Uber Eats began deploying food delivery robots throughout select parts of Los Angeles and, already, concerns have been raised that the squat little automatons could become a police surveillance tool.

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As expected, Apple is making a last-ditch effort to get the Supreme Court to reverse a ruling that would force it to open up its App Store to third-party payments. The iPhone maker filed a petition with the Court Thursday, arguing that the lower court injunction was “breathtakingly broad” and “unconstitutional.”

It’s the latest beat in a long-simmering feud between Cupertino and the Fortnite developer that’s seen both sides ask the Supreme Court to reverse parts of a lower court ruling. But Apple’s latest petition could have far-reaching consequences for all developers, should the Supreme Court decide to take up the case.

That’s because Apple is asking the Supreme Court to reverse an injunction that would require the company to allow app developers to offer payments that circumvent its App Store, and the fees associated with it. Such a move would be a major blow to the App Store’s business, which has used the rule to maintain strict control over in-app payments.

The rule, often referred to as an “anti-steering” policy, has long been controversial and a major gripe for developers. It not only prohibits app makers from providing links to web-based payments, it bars them from even telling their customers that a cheaper rate was available somewhere else.

Fortnite developer Epic made the issue a central part of its antitrust lawsuit against Apple in 2020, and the judge in the case ruled in Epic’s favor on the issue in 2021. Apple has spent the last two years fighting that part of the ruling.

Separately, Epic has also asked the Supreme Court to reconsider part of the lower court’s ruling in its bid to keep its antitrust claims against Apple alive.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-asks-supreme-court-to-reverse-app-store-ruling-in-epic-case-221126323.html?src=rss

Iran claims it has successfully placed a third imaging satellite in orbit, a move that will likely garner more criticism from the Western world over fears that the Islamic republic is bolstering its ballistic missile technology.

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