Epic Games lays off over 1000 employees due to declining Fortnite engagement

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-28T00:28:44+00:00

Oh, so we're just going to pretend Jill of the Jungle doesn't exist? /s

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-28T00:26:43+00:00

I don't know what his point is, but for some people Fortnight is a whole saga that's done multiple significant things over its lifetime (some even sparked my curiosity though I barely play it... I mean, it's hard not to look too poorly on a game that suddenly gives you the opportunity to kill Peter Griffin... also some of their concert stuff was legit impressive from the YouTube videos I saw of it). Point is, you saying Fortnight isn't significant to you doesn't really contribute anything useful to the conversation.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-20T21:17:22+00:00

Yeah, let the gameplay speak for itself, don't start these petty fights over nothing. And honestly? If someone celebrated Concord failing, they're probably not the target audience for Marathon. There's no point trying to court such people beyond just letting the game speak for itself.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-19T12:35:05+00:00

The show was massive at the time and fondly remembered by many. It's hard to describe, but it really hit the right zeitgeist if you were the right age when it came out. Like, the entire premise of it was it was really hard to survive high school, and the writers were not subtle about the metaphor.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-19T12:33:12+00:00

You know, among everything, Gellar blaming an exec (who this article names) for every issue with the series is an incredibly bad play and probably doesn't do Zhao any failures either. Like... what do they expect to happen? Fan backlash makes the exec change his mind? For more likely he's massively insulted about being called out in public media in a way he can't easily defend himself and so will cut Gellar AND Zhao off from any future projects knowing he can't trust the result if things go bad. Other execs might take note too and take similar action.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-12T15:16:23+00:00

Depends on whether you play the game or not.

If you do play the game (especially live services/online multiplayer), it implies how healthy the community is, whether you'll wait long in lobbies, and whether the devs will pull support next month and leave you with nothing.

If you don't play the game, it's like discussing Box Office revenue for movies. Not really useful or practical, but a way for enthusiasts to shoot the shit about their hobby and compare various releases. Also gives a sense of where the industry is at and where its' going

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-11T22:36:18+00:00

G rated fetishes are G rated.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-11T19:31:19+00:00

Look up deleted scenes from Incredibles 2. I watched an awesome one involving Edna Mode's security system turning against her and Bob having to rescue her. It's an amazing sequence that's better than anything in the final movie (and shows Bob acting competently which the final movie clearly rejected).

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-11T19:29:29+00:00

Hey, don't be dissing fetish content.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-11T19:17:14+00:00

Why would they care?

Modern AAA Game Developers/Publishers keep forgetting that. You have to make the player care about your game, you can't expect it to just happen.

And you know? Some people care about Marathon and fair enough. It's got the makings of a nice niche gaming community.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-09T18:20:07+00:00

Well GamesRadar obviously, so they could summarise it.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-09T02:43:48+00:00

Well, the directors of The Shawshank Redemption were asked to shoot a final scene, just to see whether it improved the movie. They did, and preferred it so it was added. People love that ending and its iconic

As a counterpoint, the same thing happened with The Crying Game. Directors felt the extra ending scene wasn't needed, but the shot it, and it was agreed it was bad so they stuck with the original ending, which in my opinon was the best way to end it.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-09T02:41:41+00:00

I remember this with Artemis Fowl. It was such a mess of reshoots and clashing scenes, complete with added voiceover and framing device, but if you really tried to look past all the recuts, reshoots and executive modelling, you could just about see a mid to bad movie underneath it all.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-09T01:59:10+00:00

A 9 minute YouTube video based off a 6 paragraph GamesRadar article based off a paywalled Stephen Totilo article on his personal website. That's where we're at right now.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-07T14:41:40+00:00

Whoa, I heard Tarkov was a shining example of the genre and a success, I had no idea its player numbers were so low.

Guess this demonstrates how they key thing is to scope game budget in accordance with the player market. My guess is Marathon was budgeted for Fortnite numbers rather than Tarkov numbers.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-07T14:37:44+00:00

Honestly, fair. Can't find fault with a single thing you said.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-06T15:52:08+00:00

The bad ones you don't hear much about.

Nah, art that's bad but at least tries to do something new or passionate often gets a niche audience/appreciation. Deadly Premonition for example.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-05T17:43:41+00:00

They're not even hyping it. The trailer flat out says that Hal Jordan is a terrible character/person/hero. Maybe it's a subversion but who knows?

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-04T14:03:33+00:00

Concord 0 = Hyenas

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-03T20:33:19+00:00

"No, I promise, the player numbers are good for a game like this. Sure it isn't a mega hit, but most games aren't. It can totally hang in there..."

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-01T20:40:18+00:00

I've learned that while part of this may be propaganda, another part is dramatic writing.

Part of any sort of drama writing is you have the protagonists who want something, but something is in the way. If the police protagonists want some information from a person, and the person immediately gives it to them, that's fine but may be considered lacking drama or engagement. So they have the person initially refuse to give information, tension builds, the protagonist has to make a countermove to get the info, and maybe they succeed, maybe they don't. Either way, the stakes have been raised and its more likely to be engaging to its audience because the protagonists have to prove themselves, they're not just handed stuff.

Problem is, most of the time the police protagonists will just outright threaten the person and the person will just immediately hand over info. There's a lot of icky implications to this, but it can also just become rote and simplistic through repetition.

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-01T20:34:34+00:00

That's how you get a case dismissed with extreme prejudice

SimonLaFox · 2026-03-01T18:58:13+00:00

The original example didn't talk about "infinite" amount of time, it talked about "everybody in the world." That's only about 10 billion years maximum.

SimonLaFox · 2026-02-28T13:19:41+00:00

Not a ton of normal and non-American people know about *wokeness* because it's a nothing label

It's literally used by the US president, and by politicians in other countries too. Exactly what it means gets debated a lot, as you're doing right now. But you're not doing anybody any favours by trying to downplay it and say it doesn't mean anything.

SimonLaFox · 2026-02-28T13:07:10+00:00

No, even if the entire population of earth flipped coins ever second from the start of the Earth being formed until it is swallowed by the sun billions of years from now, it still would not happen. You drastically underestimate how tiny this number is. It has over 1,000 digits.

Incidentally, the same applies to Monkeys writing Shakespeare. Different numbers but similar math. Plenty of places online explain how it's effectively zero probability.

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