Epic Games has said it will “solve” the insurance of a former Fortnite employee living with terminal cancer, following widespread criticism of the company’s decision to lay them off.
Mike Prinke, a programmer who had worked at Epic Games for seven years, was one of the many staff members caught up in Epic Games’ most recent mass layoffs, which resulted in more than 1,000 employees out of work.
Prinke also has terminal brain cancer, something his wife Jenni has helped publicize online, following his loss of life insurance. The situation quickly stoked further fury from fans at the staff cuts, and has now prompted a response from Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney, who said the company was now “in contact with the family [to] solve the insurance for them.”
“My husband, Mike, was recently laid off along with over 1,000 others at Epic Games,” she wrote in a post on Facebook. “What makes this different for our family is that Mike is currently fighting terminal brain cancer. Because of the layoff, we didn’t just lose income — we lost his life insurance. And because his condition is now considered a pre-existing condition, he can’t get new coverage.
“So now, as I face the reality of losing my husband… I’m also facing the reality of what type of funeral/burial I can afford. How I will keep a roof over our heads. How I will protect our son and the life we built together. What will happen to our dogs… Mike is not just a number. He is a father. A husband. A person deploy loved… We are running out of time, and I’m trying everything I can to protect my family “
Responding to comments on her post, Prinke’s wife Jenni said she had been exploring “conversion or portability options for life insurance” but that these were expensive, “to the tune of thousands of dollars per month.” Over on Twitter/X, numerous Fortnite fans began sharing the situation, which lead to Sweeney ultimately responding.
“Epic is in contact with the family and will solve the insurance for them,” Sweeney wrote, responding to BackersGamesF via a post on X/Twitter. “There is high confidentiality around medical information and it was not a factor in this layoff decision. Sorry to everyone for not recognizing this terribly painful situation and handling it in advance.”
Announcing the layoffs last week, Sweeney said Epic Games had reacted to a downturn in interest for Fortnite that began in 2025, though analysts told IGN that fewer people playing the game’s veteran battle royale was only one of its problems. The company has spent years fighting costly legal battles with Apple and Google, while bankrolling the Epic Games Store as it attempts to rival Steam. And then there’s the explosive growth of Roblox, which Fortnite has now fallen far behind. Many fans feel like it is Epic Games’ own staff that have paid the price, while those who remain at the company say they simply don’t know how Fortnite will look later this year and beyond with close to a quarter of the company’s staff gone.
Sweeney had previously commented on the layoffs to highlight the quality of talent that his company had just laid off, saying that “employers will see a stream of resumes of once-in-a-lifetime quality folks” following Epic Games’ mass layoffs. “An important thing to understand is that Epic never lowered our hiring standards as we grew, and the layoff wasn’t a performance-based “rightsizing” as companies call it nowadays,” he concluded. “It’s a sound bet that anyone with Epic Games on their resume is in the top few percent of their discipline.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
