> Epic has many stable and valuable businesses
I don't think their approach is getting to stable, valuable businesses and keeping them that way. Their company name is Epic, not Mediocre BlueChipGameCo. I think their approach has been to make big investments into things, almost like Amazon's earlier approach where they would re-invest everything into the business and that might be where Epic now has to react to the market slowing for them and pull back.
I have to imagine AI is having an impact but not in the way people jump to about them using AI. How many people out there have ideas for games and can't execute them because they don't know the tech? How many people in the software industry were drawn to computing because of gaming?
If they built AI into Unreal Engine so that someone could approach it from a Game Producer/Designer role and not have to get deep into C++ programming or shaders and art assets, and produce games, games that go to the Epic Game Store and they take a cut? That would move the market in a way that would be more fitting for their company name.