Epic Games' Major Acquisition Has Annoyed A Lot Of People
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Featured Image Credit: Epic Games
Tis the season of acquisitions, and it seems no company is safe from the hungry eyes of the mega-rich.
This year alone, we've seen Microsoft pick up Activision in a deal nearing $69 billion, while Sony hit back by acquiring Bungie for nearly $4 billion. Hell, even Netflix is still quietly moving ahead with its methodical purchasing of smaller video game studios.
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Now Fortnite and Unreal Engine developer Epic Games has gotten in on the action with a major - and totally unexpected - acquisition. While your first thought might be that Epic has splashed out on the exclusive rights to a popular franchise or scooped up a promising new developer, the company has in fact decided to purchase Bandcamp.
To be clear, this is Bandcamp the "online record store and music community". Just in case you thought there was another Bandcamp out there. Epic confirmed its purchase of the company last night, revealing it's all part of a plan to build a "creator marketplace ecosystem".
In a statement posted to the Bandcamp blog, co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond insisted that nothing will change immediately in terms of how the company operates day-to-day.
"The products and services you depend on aren't going anywhere," he wrote. "We'll continue to build Bandcamp around our artists-first revenue model (where artists net an average of 82% of every sale), you'll still have the same control over how you offer your music, Bandcamp Fridays will continue as planned, and the Daily will keep highlighting the diverse, amazing music on the site."
While normal service continues, Diamond says Epic and Bandcamp will work together behind the scenes to "push development forward" across its services, "from basics like our album pages, mobile apps, merch tools, payment system, and search and discovery features, to newer initiatives like our vinyl pressing and live streaming services."
Of course, the acquisition has already raised eyebrows across the industry, with music fans in particular expressing their concern that one of the few truly "artist first" online music platforms could be sullied.
There's currently no evidence to suggest this, of course, given what Diamond has already said about the business continuing as usual, but that hasn't stopped critics from calling out the move.
Bandcamp was the only platform I was comfortable buying music from because it seemed to really put artists first.
— Arlo (@ArloStuff) March 2, 2022
Now it's owned by Epic Games, which is majority owned by Tencent, an evil megacorporation that's slowly devouring the games industry.
Cool. https://t.co/ufYsvon7UQ
I legit don’t know what to make of the epic buying bandcamp deal, but any corporation getting involved in an independent market is never a good sign. I’ll stay cautious and hope that bandcamp remains the only good marketplace out there with artists’ best intentions in mind
— lena ⭐ raine (@kuraine) March 2, 2022
epic now owns bandcamp, artstation, and sketchfab and im struggling to think what else they could acquire to have their teeth in but them just owning corners of the internet's independent art spaces SUUUUUCKS. it is bad, it is objectively bad and i hate it.
— Aura 🌈 (@aurahack) March 2, 2022
deeply sceptical of bandcamp's sale to epic as well as the idea that a perfectly good - and presumably stable - product "has to grow" / "has to seek out exciting new avenues". sometimes the most artist friendly thing is doing one thing well and with stability
— Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) March 2, 2022
It's hard not to be cynical about Bandcamp being acquired by Epic.
— FromSlothware (@CaseyExplosion) March 2, 2022
Epic has said in its own statement that the two companies "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."
Topics: Epic Games
