Epic Lays Off Terminally Ill Employee Who Can't Get Life Insurance

Last week, Epic Games announced it was laying off over 1,000 employees to “keep the company funded.” One of them was Mike Prinke, a programmer who had been at the Fortnite maker for just under seven years. Over the weekend, his wife, Jenni Griffin, shared in a Facebook post that Prinke was facing terminal brain cancer and would be losing his life insurance due to the cuts.

“My husband, Mike was recently laid off along with over a thousand others at Epic Games,” she wrote. “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.”

The message had a brain scan image attached that showed an aggressive growth in the frontal lobe. Griffin told Kotaku that Prinke had frequent medical appointments and had previously taken paid leave. His condition wasn’t a secret at the company. “Everyone he worked with knows,” she said.

Her Facebook post quickly spread to Reddit and X where large Fortnite news accounts began tagging Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. “Are you happy now?” read one. Epic Games did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Griffin told Kotaku that the family is currently trying to obtain needed documents and, hopefully, find contingency clauses in the paperwork while they talk to life insurance providers. She’s also been weighing whether to launch a GoFundMe campaign, but doesn’t know if they should wait until they have more info or if by then it will be too late.

“We should be spending every possible moment treasuring the time we have left as tumors are actively bleeding into Mike’s brain,” she wrote. “But instead, we have to rush to try and figure out life insurance as fast as possible. At any time, Mike could have his third ‘major event’ and become unresponsive. At that point, he will not have the ability to track all this stuff down.”

In his original post announcing the layoffs, Sweeney said employees based in the U.S. would receive severance pay for 6 months, accelerated stock options vesting, and extended Epic-paid healthcare coverage.

“Mike is not just a number”

Many company benefits packages also include life insurance policies that provide payouts to families in the event of someone’s untimely death. When those policies lapse, people can buy life insurance directly through providers, but someone with Prinke’s medical condition wouldn’t be eligible. Life insurance payouts are often used to cover not just funeral expenses but also provide a cushion to help weather the loss of a person’s income.

“As I face the reality of losing my husband…I’m also facing the reality of what type of funeral/burial I can afford,” Griffin wrote in her Facebook post. “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. I truly believe that if the people who made this decision understood the full human impact, they would not have intended this outcome.”

While much of Prinke’s work remained internal, he also helped with Epic’s “Inside Unreal” tutorials that were posted on YouTube. One guided tour of gameplay abilities systems posted back in 2021 has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Griffin told Kotaku that Prinke had even pursued specific treatments for his cancer to prevent memory loss so that it wouldn’t interfere with his work. “He really gave everything to keep our family protected only to be laid off,” she wrote.

Griffin asked anyone connected to Epic Games to share her message with those at the company who might be able to do something about the situation and for everyone else to signal boost it where possible. “Mike is not just a number. He is a father. A husband. A person deeply loved,” she wrote. “We are running out of time, and I’m trying everything I can to protect my family while I still have him here with us.”

Update 3/29/2026, 2:16 p.m.: Sweeney said the company is in touch with Prinke and posted the following on X:

Epic is in contact with the family and will solve the insurance for them. 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.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) March 29, 2026