Epic is an evil mega-corp. I am not writing this to defend them. But unlike a lot of recent boondoggles, such as Unity, WotC, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Epic's skullduggery is a different flavor of capitalist dystopic shit. I think its important to classify it correctly so that we can see the warning signs again in the future. This ain't your classic enshittification.
A lot of Epic's decisions in the last 5 years make sense when you look at it less of "We have a shit ton of money, lets buy a bunch of shit," and more from the lense of "We want to replace the internet with Fortnite, our vision of the Metaverse." With this goal in mind, they made (Epic Games store) or bought(Bandcamp) platforms for users to submit "content"(derogatory) so that they can hang out in their walled garden. Their main competitor is Roblox, and they are currently stealing a page from their book by making a special version of Unreal that lets you make games specifically for Fortnite. Their entire business plan was to replace the internet with Fortnite.
Honestly, if interest rates had remained low this year, this layoff would not have happened. Hell, a lot of what I referenced in the beginning wouldn't have happened. In fact, it feels like Epic was racing the clock to build their vision before the inevitable happened with our current economy. To borrow a phrase from @dog "Truly incredible how a single year of normal interest rates causes every single company to set fire to everything they built for 15 years" We are just seeing a whole bunch of chickens coming home to roost after they partied all night long. Prepare for the mother of all fracking hangovers I guess.
