Layoff Wave: Tim Sweeney Leaves the Entire Games Industry Upbeat

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:54:00 -0400
satire, microsoft, epic games

At the end of March, software company Epic Games laid off around 1,000 people—CEO Tim Sweeney essentially said that the job market would benefit from an influx of job seekers of "once-in-a-lifetime quality." Ever since, a wave of positivity has been rippling through the industry.

While plenty of gamers reacted furiously to Sweeney's comments and vented on X or Reddit, developers and publishers, by contrast, were in a terrific mood. Apparently, the Epic boss's remarks have encouraged the industry to look at things from a different—and more upbeat—perspective.

Microsoft: New Jobs Through Layoffs

Microsoft Gaming recently announced in a press release that it had hired several new full-time HR staff to handle another round of layoffs in the near future. Newly minted Gaming CEO Asha Sharma said: "Layoffs have always carried a certain stigma. In the spirit of Tim Sweeney, we're now showing that parting ways with employees can also go hand in hand with creating new jobs."

The statement also quoted a former Microsoft Gaming employee who backed Sharma up: "When I was laid off in January 2024, I fell into a pretty deep mental hole at first. But now, in the post-Sweeney era, I actively turn down job offers. It's my way of showing employers that no offer out there could ever do justice to my once-in-a-lifetime quality."

Joy. (Stock image)

Psychologist: "Getting laid off is the new promotion"

Microsoft isn't the only place where good things are happening right now. We visited Activision in Santa Monica, California, to see the impact of Sweeney's gospel with our own eyes. On site, we spoke to the company's in-house psychologist, Dr. Edward Richtofen, who also shared his take on the mood at Activision:

"All of us at Activision have taken Tim Sweeney's words deep into our souls. Because let's be honest: at EA, Rockstar, Microsoft, and the rest, you're ultimately interchangeable. That's why getting laid off is the new promotion. Just think of Sweeney: once you've been laid off as a specialist, you're finally someone. On the job market, you're then, like thousands of others, one of a kind."

For that reason, Richtofen has also introduced a new feature for Activision games. It's meant to make it easier for developers to get laid off—with the help of players. Richtofen explained:

"We're planning to equip future games from our company with a so-called Layoff Interface, or LI for short. It consists of color-coded overlay buttons placed over things like skyboxes, NPCs, or even animations. These buttons say 'Lay them off.' So if a player thinks a certain designer, artist, or coder has done an especially good job, they can click the relevant button and vote to have that person laid off."

In that context, Dr. Richtofen also showed us a screenshot of the new LI—taken from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, which is currently in development. You can see the LI in the image below.

Just click to fire them.

When we pointed out that the game in the...