Great People, Upsetting C-Level Decisions - Anonymous employee Epic Games Employee Review

Amazing company.Great work life balance, great people

Still acts like a start up, a lot of ambiguity

Cool products Great designers and engineers WFH flexibility They have 2 weeks off in the summer and winter (for 95% of employees)

They mostly hire people who don't play games now Those are the people who make final decisions on gameplay changes and are given more authority than actual designers They see players as something to exploit for money and seek monetization first with everything they do Executives and directors only surround themselves with yes-men these days, along with self serving AI bots Folks at the bottom can not be heard by those at the top, the structure has become very rigid and info doesnt trickle up anymore The call from the top has been to keep making more Fortnite for so long, even after layoffs they just double down on the bets that led to the layoff in the first place. They are allergic to promoting up too high and would rather bring in external folks for any senior leadership role They hire like crazy every time they get some money There is generally never consequence for failed bets, and so you see people failing again and again at the top for years and they're never held accountable In general they are allergic to setting success targets (at least that are shared to lower class). They do "if it works, great", "if it doesnt everything is on fire and we need to pivot everything." They intentionally avoid original work and exclusively copy other games and creators because its safer, even though those copy bets fail usually anyway. The top leaders, including Tim, have become unapproachable by anyone who isn't in their ear already. From the outside it looks like the king of Rohan and Wormtongue. Its a bunch of grifters guiding and lying to very powerful men.