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Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

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Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#101

Post by kingcharles »

zippergz wrote: post #40
siver_john wrote: post #22

This feels like a major blow, as someone who just semi recently (probably around pandemic start) started getting into purchasing flac music from indie artists, Bandcamp was a great source of music. I understand nothing will change in the short term, but long term I am very concerned. Especially as streaming becomes more dominant and companies are less willing to provide flac based music and physical discs (where I ca…

"Nothing will change in the short term" is the story of every acquisition, almost all of which end up with major changes for the worse at some point. (So yes, I agree with you.)

There's a Twitter account I can't find right now (help!) which shows the statements companies put out at the moment of acquisition ("nothing will change, ever, we'll always be independent") and the statements they put out a couple of months later ("all your files have been deleted, we've closed the offices, everyone is absorbed into Parent Company, so long and thanks for all the fish").

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#102

Post by dymk »

ffpip wrote: post #98
superkuh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Epic bought the game "Rocket League" they promised not to change anything. At that time it had Windows, Linux, Mac, xbox, and playstation clients. 6 months after they aquisition they killed off the linux client (even for people who bought in-game purchases). Epic lies. It is what they do. They are the epitome of a dangerous megacorp.

They also made the game free to play. https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/15/21438194/rocket-league-fr...

Which is a big middle finger to those who had purchased the game. And I can't think of a game that didn't have the quality of its player base (and so, gameplay) decline after going F2P (looking at you, TF2).

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#103

Post by stjohnswarts »

HellDunkel wrote: post #37

Lots of disappointed comments here. Would you guys really prefer seeing bandcamp beeing bought by Apple?

Not everything has to be a buy out. Why can't a business just be a business and make some money for the owners and provide a service for the users and grow organically (or not). I know HN crowd often see that as an unnatural business model but it has worked for small business for eons.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#104

Post by DrBoring »

It's my experience that when a buyout occurs, product quality usually suffers.

I wonder if there is a directory if beloved companies whose quality goes down after a buyout.

This past weekend, I was lamenting with a friend about how two US craft beer breweries we loved were bought out, and how they stopped producing their interesting niche beers in favor of more profitable ones. Their restaurant menus got bland too.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#105

Post by danso »

Maybe change of ownership won't significantly affect Bandcamp's operation, but my limited consumer-facing experience with Epic — via its game store — has given me such a bad taste that I'm not keen on using any storefront service managed by Epic.

And this is despite the vast majority of my Epic game library being free (literally hundreds of games) or deeply discounted — the storefront is really that bad. For example, when AWS went down a couple months ago, both the store app was non-functional. Apparently, the game store depends on S3 for game thumbnails and other metadata, and its caching is...non-optimal. I think I could've accessed my games by running their executables directly from file explorer. But 4 years in, this kind of slapped together design decision — on top of EGS still being bare bones compared to Steam — seems indicative of poor management.

Obviously, Bandcamp as a relatively mature storefront is not in the same situation. And remaining alive and sustainable probably outweighs what negatives Epic might bring as owner.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#106

Post by loudtieblahblah »

skyfaller wrote: post #74
siver_john wrote: post #22

This feels like a major blow, as someone who just semi recently (probably around pandemic start) started getting into purchasing flac music from indie artists, Bandcamp was a great source of music. I understand nothing will change in the short term, but long term I am very concerned. Especially as streaming becomes more dominant and companies are less willing to provide flac based music and physical discs (where I ca…

I've been buying more mainstream artists (who aren't on Bandcamp) from 7digital: https://us.7digital.com/ That said, I didn't spend nearly as much money there because Bandcamp showed a lot more evidence that they cared about ethics and getting money directly to artists. I have no idea how money works with something like 7digital, but I assume it doesn't pay artists as well.

7digital has really gone down hill in the last 2 years. They haven't updated their front page in forever and when they do its very slight. All the albums listed on the front page are from 2019.

Albums disappear all the time and never return, your downloads from your library break when that happens too. So be like me, download immediately and back it up.

I still use 7digital bc it's easier to actually download the mp3/flac, especially on mobile, without a 3rd party app (like Amazon) that makes you download one song at a time (as opposed to a zip of an album)

But it's a rotting, decaying place where new music doesn't get added.

I listen to mostly older shit. So no big deal for me. For now.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#107

Post by skyfaller »

kingcharles wrote: post #101
zippergz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nothing will change in the short term" is the story of every acquisition, almost all of which end up with major changes for the worse at some point. (So yes, I agree with you.)

There's a Twitter account I can't find right now (help!) which shows the statements companies put out at the moment of acquisition ("nothing will change, ever, we'll always be independent") and the statements they put out a couple of months later ("all your files have been deleted, we've closed the offices, everyone is absorbed into Parent Company, so long and thanks for all the fish").

Do you mean the "Our Incredible Journey" Tumblr? https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#108

Post by paxys »

Macha wrote: post #83
paxys wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Motivation for founders is a lot easier to understand than that of the acquiring company. What on earth is Epic going to do with Bandcamp?

Turn the Epic Games Store into a more general Play Store/Apple Store competitor by expanding into other media types?

The Epic Games Store is barely even functional for video games. They haven't been able to implement table stakes features like reviews and a shopping cart, despite promising them for years now. Going wider and increasing its surface area even further doesn't really sound like a winning move.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#109

Post by [deleted] »

kingcharles wrote: post #101
zippergz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nothing will change in the short term" is the story of every acquisition, almost all of which end up with major changes for the worse at some point. (So yes, I agree with you.)

There's a Twitter account I can't find right now (help!) which shows the statements companies put out at the moment of acquisition ("nothing will change, ever, we'll always be independent") and the statements they put out a couple of months later ("all your files have been deleted, we've closed the offices, everyone is absorbed into Parent Company, so long and thanks for all the fish").

[deleted]

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#110

Post by AlexandrB »

mdoms wrote: post #89
AlexandrB wrote: post #3

> Bandcamp will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community... 40% of which will be owned by Tencent, possibly more in the future based on the whims of Tim Sweeney and the performance of Epic's primary business (Video Games). Really unfortunate to see an independent source for music become part of a huge conglomerate.

Epic Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney has addressed this a number of times and so far given no reason to doubt it, > I’m the controlling shareholder in Epic Games, and have been since 1991. We have a number of outside investors now. Tencent is the largest. All of Epic’s investors our friends and partners. None can dictate decisions to Epic. None have access to Epic customer data. > Tencent is a Chinese company founded in…

I think it's naive to think that the opinion of a 40% shareholder has no influence on the CEO. Even if that just presents as a bias in their decision making.

> Although I completely agree with you that it's a shame to see yet another indie source get swallowed up by a big corporation.

For the record, I don't think that Tencent is any more evil than Disney, Sony, or Microsoft in this regard.

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