Fortnite publisher Epic Games has revealed plans to cut 16 per cent of its workforce.

The move, which was announced in a staff memo signed by the company's chief executive, will see around 830 people lose their jobs across the business.

The memo said that while the video game company had attempted to reduce costs, it was “spending way more” than it currently earns.

The company is also planning the sale of online record store Bandcamp, which it bought in 2022.

Bandcamp is joining Songtradr, a music marketplace company supporting artists.

Additionally, advertising business SuperAwesome will be divested, becoming an independent company under the SuperAwesome brand.

"We concluded that layoffs are the only way, and that doing them now and on this scale will stabilise our finances," wrote chief exec Tim Sweeney. "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."

He added that the company is cutting costs without "breaking development of [its] core lines of businesses", with around two-thirds of the layoffs taking place in teams outside of core development.

At the end of last year Epic Games was slapped with a record fine in the US for alleged children’s privacy violations.

At the time, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that Epic had agreed to pay a penalty of $520 million to settle allegations that it illegally collected children’s personal information and tricked people into making purchases.

The game has historically been criticised by many in the games industry for so-called ‘dark patterns’ which encourage spending, and for cultivating a culture which shames kids for not having the latest digital outfits or skins.

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