Wake County video game slump hits Epic layoffs, Wake Tech programs

Epic Games’ decision to cut more than 1,000 jobs in Cary has jolted Wake County’s video game workforce pipeline, where Wake Technical Community College has spent nearly two decades training students for studios that now face a weaker market. Epic said the layoffs, announced March 24, were tied to a downturn in Fortnite engagement that began in 2025, leaving the company spending significantly more than it was making even after identifying more than $500 million in cost savings.

For Wake Tech, the cuts land squarely on a program built to feed that local industry. The college’s Simulation and Game Development program started in 2006 with a National Science Foundation grant and now offers a two-year Associate in Applied Science degree plus certificates. Wake Tech says the program has about 375 students enrolled each semester, and a later college update put enrollment at more than 400, making it one of the school’s fastest-growing areas of study.

The stakes are larger than game jobs alone. Wake Tech says graduates have gone on to work at Epic, Red Storm/Ubisoft, Funcom and Limited Run Games, but the curriculum also prepares students for roles as testers, quality assurance analysts, artists, animators, programmers, designers, engineers and administrators in entertainment, health care, education, corporate training and government. That broader reach may matter now as the Triangle’s game economy absorbs the shock from Epic’s retrenchment.

Wake Tech’s student showcase remains one of the clearest links between classroom work and employment. The annual capstone project uses Unity and Unreal Engine, and in 2023 faculty said exposure to local game companies at the showcase helped many graduating students land jobs. One student said a paid internship at Funcom in Morrisville helped open the door to work in the industry. More than 50 students took part in a recent showcase project, underscoring how much of the college’s pipeline is already tied to real-world production.

Epic said the layoffs were not related to artificial intelligence. The company also said laid-off employees would receive at least four months of base pay, more for longer-tenured workers, along with Epic-paid health coverage and accelerated stock-option vesting. Even with that support, the loss is a reminder of how heavily Wake County’s tech economy has leaned on gaming, and how quickly a slowdown at one anchor company can ripple through classrooms at Wake Tech’s RTP Campus in Morrisville and through the wider workforce plans built around it. Wake Tech says it serves more than 74,000 adults each year as North Carolina’s largest community college.