Epic Games Acquires Bandcamp Music Marketplace & Community

[Uskompuf]

Today, we are thrilled to announce that Bandcamp will become part of Epic Games. Bandcamp is an online music store and community where fans can discover, connect with, and directly support the independent musicians they love. Fair and open platforms are critical to the future of the creator economy. Epic and Bandcamp share a mission of building the most artist friendly platform that enables creators to keep the majority of their hard-earned money. Bandcamp will play an important role in Epic's vision to build out a creator marketplace ecosystem for content, technology, games, art, music and more.

"Bandcamp's mission is to help spread the healing power of music by building a community where artists thrive through the direct support of their fans," said Ethan Diamond, CEO and co-founder of Bandcamp. "In Epic, we've found a partner who believes as deeply as we do that the future of music, and art itself, depends on the creation of equitable and inclusive communities like the one our fans and artists have helped to build. We're excited to work alongside the Epic team to accelerate the realization of our mission and pursue our shared goal of empowering more creators in a fair and open way."





"We couldn't be more excited to welcome the Bandcamp team to Epic Games," said Steve Allison, Vice President and General Manager, Store at Epic Games. "Bandcamp has built an incredible community and business where up and coming artists can succeed thanks to the direct support of their fans, with one of the best revenue models and terms in music. This aligns closely with Epic's approach to supporting creators across all media and enabling them to connect directly with their fans."

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Chomiq]

Oh sh... there goes my main source of music.

 

[Ferrum Master]

WTF...

My favorite music service just went ass.

 

[Space Lynx]

Never heard of Bandcamp until now. I just use spotify, I get it for $5 a month no ads and basically anything i want ez pz

 

[the54thvoid]

That's some odd brand diversion. A music streaming/market for creators to get some cash. I bought an album from there recently after it disappeared from Google Play.

Hope the artists don't suffer.

 

[Wirko]

That's some odd brand diversion. A music streaming/market for creators to get some cash. I bought an album from there recently after it disappeared from Google Play.

Hope the artists don't suffer.

Hopefully we'll still be able to actually buy albums. Uncompressed, too.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I wonder if Epic plays the flute too..



Never heard of Bandcamp for music but I'll have to have a looksee.

 

[Space Lynx]

I wonder if Epic plays the flute too..



Never heard of Bandcamp for music but I'll have to have a looksee.

that gif is actually what my brain went to as well when i first read the title lol

 

[Bomby569]

Damn people love to hate Epic. It seems to me they just wanted to expand the model of the e-store low percentage cut to music like they did to games. Makes sense from a bussiness perspective.

I don't see the evil doom part here.

 

[the54thvoid]

Damn people love to hate Epic. It seems to me they just wanted to expand the model of the e-store low percentage cut to music like they did to games. Makes sense from a bussiness perspective.

I don't see the evil doom part here.

Often, all too often, when a larger player buys out the smaller company, the ethos and culture of the smaller company tends to diminish.

I'm not an Epic hater. I have the launcher on my desktop.

 

[Bomby569]

Often, all too often, when a larger player buys out the smaller company, the ethos and culture of the smaller company tends to diminish.

I'm not an Epic hater. I have the launcher on my desktop.

Especially because Bandcamp was a private company. A public company always has earnings preassure. I agree with that.

But it was not a random move, it did make sense in the context of EPIC's strategy. Now we have to wait and see.

 

[Space Lynx]

Often, all too often, when a larger player buys out the smaller company, the ethos and culture of the smaller company tends to diminish.

I'm not an Epic hater. I have the launcher on my desktop.

Damn people love to hate Epic. It seems to me they just wanted to expand the model of the e-store low percentage cut to music like they did to games. Makes sense from a bussiness perspective.

I don't see the evil doom part here.

Epic game store is epic at spying on you

I always had some hesitation about the Epic Game store but now I am glad I never installed it. In a recent post over on Reddit a user has found just what the EGS gets up to when installed on your laptop. Firstly, it is clear the client is listing all of the processes running on the system. As...

www.techpowerup.com

this might be the reason why

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I dont think anyone truly hates larger institutions like Epic, its more about making them the butt of jokes.

 

[Bomby569]

I dont think anyone truly hates larger institutions like Epic, its more about making them the butt of jokes.

i wonder what purpose does it serve. Nestle is the devil and everyone buys their stuff, just one of the most obvious examples, i could be here all day mentioning company names.

 

[windwhirl]

Damn people love to hate Epic. It seems to me they just wanted to expand the model of the e-store low percentage cut to music like they did to games. Makes sense from a bussiness perspective.

I don't see the evil doom part here.

There was no need. Bandcamp already had low fees. 10 to 15% percent (plus payment processing fees, which were between 4-6%). So artists usually get around 80% of the money

 

[skizzo]

Bandcamp is a good place for amateurs like myself to post up my various musical endeavors......I get more randos spending $1-$5 on our music than I do friends I know lol....despite always posting the music for free. Which is an awesome option because ppl can pay as little as $1 or give me their lifes savings or anything in between. And that option is available even when you provide the option that everyone can download the music for free too. It's been a while since I added anything but yes I remember either they make you upload in a lossless format so that is available and then they must convert it to other options like mp3 should the user want to download that format instead. So again, lots of options for musician and customer. For what little I am on there I think they take like ~15%. if you're a bigger group with more sales they take less. it's better and easier to setup than anything else I've ever used. as long as it stays that way, I couldn't give a shit that EPIC owns it now. Bandcamp isn't broken, so no need to fix it

 

[TheDeeGee]

Epic game store is epic at spying on you

I always had some hesitation about the Epic Game store but now I am glad I never installed it. In a recent post over on Reddit a user has found just what the EGS gets up to when installed on your laptop. Firstly, it is clear the client is listing all of the processes running on the system. As...

www.techpowerup.com

this might be the reason why

Why are you using the internet even?

Also that news is 3 years old, give me a break man.

 

[Space Lynx]

Why are you using the internet even?

Also that news is 3 years old, give me a break man.

huh? I was answering a question for someone as to why they think 'others' hate on EGS, I personally use EGS and every client out there almost, I don't care, I just game.

perhaps next time you should read more carefully?

 

[TechLurker]

I wonder if this will allow Epic to more directly interact with some artists and commission a song or two, or work out licensing, for a track they might be interested in adding to one of their games, even if temporarily. For example, like the Fortnite music crossovers, with some proceeds from skins and gear also going to the artist.

Granted, I don't know about bandcamp since I curate my own music onto my phone or on rare occasions, an old but functional MP3 player.

 

[NotHereMan]

What terrible news. This was also my main source of buying new music. Nothing lasts forever.

 

[defaultluser]

i wonder what purpose does it serve. Nestle is the devil and everyone buys their stuff, just one of the most obvious examples, i could be here all day mentioning company names.

Well, if you choose to have no moral stances whatsoever, what does that say of you as a person? You can't solve every problem out there, because you can't be expected to have the bandwidth to care enough to become informed; Epic is a lot easier to be informed on, than say a multinational like Nestle!

There's also the difference between "No, you don't have a choice of not buying Nestle food products in most major cities " to "yes, you do have a lucid choice in creating and perpetuating the Epic MegaCrap" brand for TenCent!

When you have the choice of just Walmart or Amazon, which exploitative big-box retailer do you choose? Given how few things in this would have such an easy option as "Epic or not?" you should exercise that rare freedom!

 

[Bomby569]

Well, if you choose to have no moral stances whatsoever, what does that say of you as a person? You can't solve every problem out there, because you can't be expectted to have the bandwidth to care enouh to become informed; Epic is a lot easier to be informed on, thna say a multinational like Nestle!

There's also the difference between "No, you don't have a choice of not buying Nestle food products in most major cities " to "yes, you do have a lucid choice in creating and perpetuating the Epic MegaCrap" brand for TenCent!

When you have the choice of just Walmart or Amazon, which exploitative big-box retailer do you choose?

Your comparing video games stores, with some of the most vile practices a company has ever done, including saying water is not a human right. And can you please give on example of a product of Nestle that you can't replace by something else?

You really have to hate Epic at an insane level to write that.

 

[TheEndIsNear]

that gif is actually what my brain went to as well when i first read the title lol

First thing I thought of way off on the timing

 

[defaultluser]

Your comparing video games stores, with some of the most vile practices a company has ever done, including saying water is not a human right. And can you please give on example of a product of Nestle that you can't replace by something else?

You really have to hate Epic at an insane level to write that.

Of course I do

for 25 years, Epic MegaFail Has managed to release nothing remotely interesting in their new IP.

You know things are pretty bad when your most successful New IP game is Gears - man, that is so boring; but like anything else with Epics Megafail Official Hypetrain(tm) attached to it, you can convince anyone to buy millions of copies of shovel-ware!

They've been dumping Unreal licensing money on all this shit for two decades now, but they finally produced anther Epic Money Printer with Fortnite

Now, for some fucking reason, they feel like the solution for their success is to copy the Origin Store, except without any of the interesting exclusives? So, instead, you get the Nintendo timed-exclusives model

It's not necessarily what these power-hungry numb-nuts have been doing in the last few years - it's what they have been doing since they released their first 3d game - world domination by default (because nobody else has put in the time to port something like UT to so many platforms)

Just because they still sell games doesn't mean any of them actually worth owning - and that is the saddest part of Unreal - when was the last time Epic actually made a new, good game to go along with a new engine release?

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

This is a funny coincidence, because people of my generation, will think Epic=Epic Records=Sony Music Entertainment. (SME) LOL