Epic Games, the developer behind the online phenomenon Fortnite and creator of the Unreal Engine, has acquired Bandcamp. The announcement was made on the Bandcamp blog by the company’s co-Founder and CEO Ethan Diamond.
“I’m excited to announce that Bandcamp is joining Epic Games, who you may know as the makers of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, and champions for a fair and open Internet,” said Diamond. The executive continues by reassuring creators and consumers of the platform saying “Bandcamp will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community.” Diamond promises that the company will “continue to build Bandcamp around our artists-first revenue model (where artists net an average of 82% of every sale).”
Diamond also explains that despite multiple companies speaking with him about acquiring Bandcamp in the past, Bandcamp ended up going with Epic. “…we’re working with Epic to expand internationally and push development forward across Bandcamp,” mentioning “album pages, mobile apps, merch tools, payment system, and search and discovery features.” Diamond claims that partnering up with Epic will “provide the resources to bring a lot more benefit to the artists, labels, and fans who use the site.”
Epic Games also made a statement regarding the acquisition which mentions a lot of similar things as Diamond did on the Bandcamp Blog, but the company does note that its goal with Bandcamp is “building the most artist friendly platform that enables creators to keep the majority of their hard-earned money.” This objective does match Epic’s actions in the past with creating the Epic Games Store a PC market platform to rival Steam, giving more money to the developers who sell their games on its platform versus its Valve counterpart.
