TiL Epic had purchased BandCamp
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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Selling Bandcamp
Thank god, keep your grimy paws off my music, Sweeney.
Monkey's paw: Google buys it
At the same time, Epic is divesting itself of Bandcamp, a deeply strange acquisition in the first place. It’s being sold to Songtradr.
Not today, monkey's paw.
Tomorrow: Songtradr joins the Koch Media family
In the not too distant future:
Today we’re announcing we’re ending support for Bandcamp and merging it to YouTube music….
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I might be jaded, but I'd wager that whoever buys it, is going to be worse than having Epic as a rich daddy who is focused on and making money through his core business and doesn't really know what to do with Bandcamp. Entities that buy it are almost certainly going to squeeze harder at the expense of user experience.
Why don't we buy it?
Could this be a kickstarter?
Yeah, people speculated that this was coming.
Also, why the hell do they own bandcamp, lol.
I dunno, company that sells digital content for young people buys company that sells other digital content for young people. I can see the synergy there. Epic Games Store and Bandcamp aren't that far apart.
Wait.... They sell games? I thought, they'd just gift you some every week!
Lol same my entire Epic library is all the free games I get every Thursday like today.
And there's like 300 of them. With Steam, I had to buy my way into a Buridan's donkey position where I don't play anything because I have too much. My man Sweeney made me jaded for free.
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Thank fucking god they're selling Bandcamp before they had a chance to ruin it🙏
Now it'll go to some private equity vampire who will really ruin it
It went to Songtradr, who are mostly a music licencing company. So I'm guessing that at least initially things are going to stay the same but that musicians are going to get nagged into letting Songtradr put their stuff up on their big licencing store. And then enshittification, because that's how absolutely everything is going.
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They're also increasing the price of V-Bucks to try to get even more money out of Fortnite players.
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The Bandcamp sale is hopefully good news. Songtradr looks like they're just in the music business and don't (from their Wikipedia page) have any obviously dodgy investors.
They also bought 7digital.com this year, which is a site I sometimes buy MP3s from since they have a better selection of mainstream record-label stuff than Bandcamp (no Amazon MP3s here in Canada).
Godot seeing both Unity and Epic implode in the same month: "now's the time"
I wonder what this means for bandcamp. It’s one of the only few options where musicians can actually earn from their work.
Like other commenters here, I’m hopeful. Epic owning Bandcamp was pretty scary. They never really answered questions about it and a lot of folks were worried it could have gone the Epic Store route. Epic might honestly have sucked up all the data and sold it off already, though. We don’t know what the future will hold; I feel like no Epic is at worst a neutral position. Songtradr is at least in the music business and isn’t headed by Tim Sweeney.
That's some... That's some... Epic layoff.
The second good news for Godot today and I'm here for it
People are losing their jobs. Their families are going to be in serious distress. I don't wish layoffs on anyone.
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How does this help Godot?
I guess that since Epic owns Unreal Engine that bad news for Epic means good news for Godot?
I don't think that Epic is going to want to divest from Unreal considering how much money it makes.
I also don't think that it's a zero-sum game. As a developer I want Unreal (and Unity) to be great so it creates more competition. Unreal has led the way in a lot of cool gaming tech that Godot is picking up.
Epic actually invested in Godot with their MegaGrant. Godot is also available on the Epic store.
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The effects of the SVB bankruptcy are still rippling out.
Also, I thought Apple owned Bandcamp.
I think this might have more to do with the beating that Epic took from Apple in court. The 2021 decision in favor of Apple, of their lawsuit for anti-competitive behavior was upheld this year. That was not cheap to litigate that and was a major loss for Epic.
I think the Bandcamp sell off is a good indicator of all of this. Epic obtained Bandcamp in March 2022, to explicitly have their IAP system integrated into it. Google shut them down and told them they would start collecting the 30% usual due. Epic filed suit and Google gave them an exception for the time being with the agreement that 10% would be held in escrow until the conclusion of the trail. With many of the arguments in the Apple case similar to Google's case, I'm pretty sure Epic sees the loss coming from a mile away.
All in all, what I think can be drawn from this. Epic made a big bet on "their store" and that's fading away with mobile devices locking people into a marketplace that is "distinctly not Epic". While putting such a bet wouldn't normally kill a company, Epic sextupled down on it and I think how hard they went for "their marketplace" is what's done them in.
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SVB has nothing to do with this, it's crazy that people think that SVB is a cause and not a symptom.
I think you’re thinking of GarageBand.
or Bootcamp
It's funny really. They probably could continued growth had Tim Sweeney just swallowed his pride and accepted the 30% commission rate. Instead, the game has a nearly non-existent prominence on mobile because of it.
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