Epic Games recently laid off more than 800 workers. In other words, the Fortnite creator lost 16% of its workforce, which is certainly a big hit. While the company will save millions with this move, players are worried that the layoffs will affect the quality of the popular battle royale game.
Tim Sweeney, the company’s founder and CEO, ensures players that everything is going to be fine. However, the game publisher made a very controversial move on Thursday night, just a few hours after laying off 16% of its workforce.
Epic released an emote to the Item Shop, which quickly became one of the most controversial Fortnite items.
The controversial Fortnite item was quickly removed from the shop
On Thursday night, Epic Games released the Share the Wealth emote to the Fortnite Item Shop. This is an Uncommon (Green) emote that only costs 200 V-Bucks. It was first released in July 2023 and has appeared in the shop a couple of times since then.
The emote has an animation of a character throwing the money around. Due to this, it has quickly become a controversial Fortnite item. Releasing the emote only a few hours after laying off hundreds of people wasn’t the right thing to do, and Epic knew that.
The Share the Wealth emote was located in the Daily section of the Item Shop. Shortly after its release, Epic Games removed the entire section of the shop but revealed that it’d return at the next refresh. However, the next Item Shop rotation likely won’t have the controversial emote.
While releasing the controversial Fortnite item was certainly a mistake, Epic likely didn’t do it on purpose. The company schedules Item Shop rotations at least a few weeks upfront, so this was just bad timing and a horrible coincidence.
Considering all the controversy that surrounds the item, it may not return for a long time.
