Epic Games officially acquires Bandcamp, could be working on Fortnite projects
The story of video game companies’ acquisition spree continues. Following the Activision/Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft earlier this year, Epic Games followed suit recently by officially acquiring Bandcamp.
“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,” Epic Games’ announcement reads.
The move shows Epic Games’ strong commitment to cover larger market, this time the company is on track in expanding to cater more music content through Bandcamp’s massive audience of independent music artists.
Reportedly, after Epic Games acquired Bandcamp, the internet music company will continue to work as intended with more “international focus”.
Details so far
In a statement released on Wednesday, Bandcamp co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond has confirmed the company remains working as a standalone marketplace.
“Bandcamp will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community, and I will continue to lead our team,” Diamond said.
While there are not many details available at the time of writing this article, according to Diamond, both the company’s products and revenue model stay unchanged with heavy emphasis around musicians’ net average of 82% for every sale.
As for developing the company with Epic Games, Diamond said the company will expand to the international stage and consider adding more brand new initiatives from the vinyl pressing to live streaming services.
“Behind the scenes we’re working with Epic to expand internationally and push development forward across Bandcamp, 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,” the CEO added.
Epic Games’ fair play
Diamond also confirmed Bandcamp planned some of its services as scheduled such as Bandcamp Fridays and Daily.
Epic Games in a post on its website says fair and open platforms are critical within the creator economy as the two companies share the same mission. Noting that the acquisition is not one-sided.
“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,” the statement reads.
Both companies share a similarity in their creator-friendly revenue-sharing scheme, with Bandcamp’s artists-first revenue model giving more sales percentage for creators and Epic Games’ low 12% cut from game sales.
“Bandcamp has built an incredible community and business where up and coming artists can succeed thanks to the direct support of their fans,” Epic Games VP and general manager store at Epic Games Steve Allison said.
“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.”
Epic Games has been targeting the profitable market of independent creators. Previously, they are focusing more on independent game developers from early developing stages to game launch.
Acquiring Bandcamp means that Epic Games is expanding to independent music creators with Bandcamp’s massive market and community providing exactly what Epic Games needed.