Sergiy Galyonkin, director of release strategy at Epic Games, announces his departure, saying he’s not a good fit for the company’s direction
Sergiy Galyonkin, director of release strategy at Epic Games, has announced his departure from the company. In a statement released Monday, he said it was his last day working at Epic.
It’s unclear whether his departure is directly related to Epic’s massive layoffs. Last week, the company announced plans to lay off about 830 employees, or 16% of its workforce. In announcing his departure, Galyonkin said he was “not a good fit” for the direction of Epic.
Galyonkin is the creator of Steam Spy, a website launched in 2015 that automatically collects data from Steam users’ profiles, analyzes it, and generates statistics such as game sales and average playtime per game.
According to Galyonkin’s LinkedIn profile, he joined Epic in February 2016 as head of publishing for Eastern Europe, then in August 2017 as director of release strategy.
What Galyonkin learned from Steam Spy was used to help develop Steam’s competitor, the Epic Games Store, which launched in December 2018, Galyonkin said, “It’s been eight of the most exciting years of my career, and I’m incredibly grateful to my former Epic Games colleagues for letting me help build Epic 4.0 together.”
We launched Fortnite, which went on to become one of the self-reinforcing cultural phenomena I wrote about a year ago. We proved that free-to-play games that you don't have to pay to win can become massively popular.
Now, Epic Games is transitioning from game developer, engine creator, and publisher to platform -- Epic 5.0. I'm not really comfortable with this new version of Epic, which requires a different type of person. I intend to stay in the game industry and would like to be more outspoken.