Every week it seems like more and more of the industry is gobbling up talent and new studios. Today, Epic Games announced that it is acquiring the online record store Bandcamp, which is known for supporting independent musicians directly.
While the acquisition itself seems out of left field, if you look at Epic’s track record, mainly its acquisition of Harmonix, you can start to see the broader picture.
Fortnite Publisher Epic Games Acquire Online Music Retailer Bandcamp
It’s clear that Epic wants to build Fortnite and other properties into the place to be. Live music events like Ariana Grande, Travis Scott, and more are beginning to change the way we look at what digital in-game events can be.
The acquisition is promptly summed up in the post on the Epic Games website.
“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 co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond also put out a post explaining what isn’t changing alongside this news.
“Bandcamp will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community, and I will continue to lead our team. The products and services you depend on aren’t going anywhere, we’ll continue to build Bandcamp around our artists-first revenue model (where artists net an average of 82% of every sale)”
It’s clear Epic Games wants to increase its foothold in both the digital marketplace and also make sure all of its systems are working in tandem. Bandcamp is just another way of pushing into the music side and I would be surprised if we didn’t see Bandcamp and Harmonix working together in some fashion.
