Epic Games Acquires Bandcamp

It’s the news you didn’t expect to hear, Epic Games acquires Bandcamp but what does it mean?

Bandcamp users got a surprise message in their inbox last night, the company best known for Fortnite- Epic Games added Bandcamp to their portfolio. The email was sent out by Bandcamp Co-Founder, Ethan Diamond who outlined his reasons for joining the global gaming brand:

We share a vision of building the most open, artist-friendly ecosystem in the world, and together we’ll be able to create even more opportunities for artists to be compensated fairly for their work.

But what does this mean for the artist’s music and merch store of choice? According to Mr Diamond:

 …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

Some are not so sure about this, such as the renowned Chicago House music magazine, Five who breakdown the acquisition in their online article:

The emphasis on the latter part strikes directly at the heart of Epic Games vs. Apple, which began with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney challenge against any platform but Apple in particular taking a 30% cut of everything just for permitting developers to use the App Store platform. The lawsuit began when Epic intentionally circumvented the App Store in-app payment system, leading to Apple’s removal of the product from the store.

It would be a shame and a huge loss to artists and DJs if Bandcamp’s model changes. For now we will have to wait and see.