Layoffs have become a grim pattern across the video game industry, but one story tied to Epic Games’ recent cuts has hit especially hard. Epic Games, best known for Fortnite, reportedly laid off around 1,000 employees after explaining that a significant drop in player engagement during 2025 pushed the company into spending more than it was bringing in.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney described the layoffs as a difficult but necessary move to keep the business sustainable. The company offered impacted employees a package that included four months of severance pay, up to six months of continued health coverage in the U.S., and stock-related benefits. As former staff members began sharing their experiences online, one family’s situation stood out as a heartbreaking example of how job cuts can ripple far beyond the workplace.
One of the employees affected was Michael Prinke, a programmer and technical writer who had worked at Epic Games for nearly seven years. According to a public post shared by his wife, Jenni Griffin, Prinke is currently fighting terminal brain cancer. She explained that while he was employed, he had company-sponsored life insurance, providing crucial peace of mind as his health declined and the family faced an uncertain future.
After the layoff, she says that life insurance coverage ended immediately. And because his cancer is considered a pre-existing condition, she shared that he is unable to qualify for a new life insurance policy elsewhere. In her words, the loss of that coverage didn’t just remove a benefit—it changed what their family may be able to afford and how they can plan for what comes next.
Griffin described the pressure now weighing on her family: trying to prepare for the possibility of losing her husband while also worrying about basic stability for their household, their child, and even their pets. She also shared an image of an MRI scan showing an aggressive frontal lobe tumor, posting it as part of a plea for help and for executives to recognize the human impact behind decisions made during large-scale layoffs.
She emphasized that her husband is more than a line on a payroll spreadsheet—he’s a father and a deeply loved person—and said the family is running out of time. While his health insurance coverage reportedly continues for the next six months, the absence of life insurance leaves them in a frightening position at the worst moment imaginable.
For now, the family’s focus is on spending as much meaningful time together as possible, while hoping Epic Games will step in with a solution once the right people fully understand the circumstances. Griffin wrote that she believes the decision-makers would not have intended this outcome if they had known the full details.
In a later update to her post, she added that someone at Epic Games has reached out and that discussions are now underway, with more information expected soon.
