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Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

variety.com

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Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#251

Post by johnnyanmac »

paxys wrote: post #108
Macha wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

User reviews are in the pipeline and shopping cart was added last year. And I doubt there were technical barriers that kept them from making this. Just a matter of other priorities on the store not immediately visible to western eyes (e.g., they have aggressively pursued regional pricing for the last 18 months).

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#252

Post by QuikAccount »

H1Supreme wrote: post #225
QuikAccount wrote: post #60

Everyone here is really gloom and doom about this news but as much as I love Bandcamp, they have made some decisions that really made me not want to use the platform. For example, if an artist releases a free song as part of an album, it is not possible to add that song to your library without purchasing the whole album. This makes no sense when I only like and want to purchase say 2 or 3 songs off the album. This al…

That's not Bandcamp's fault. Whoever listed the album configured it that way. There are settings for artists (or labels or whoever) to allow people to purchase single songs, or require that they buy the entire album. I've bought plenty of single tracks from albums. A few of them as recently as this past weekend.

Either I didn't explain it correctly or you didn't read what I said entirely.

If an album has a free song or single, you cannot add the free song to your library unless you purchase the whole album. Even if you are allowed to purchase individual songs on the album.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#253

Post by Swenrekcah »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #206
antihero wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do things need an exit strategy, why can they not simply exist and do good work and pay people fairly? Does everything have to exist purely to maximise profit?

>Does everything have to exist purely to maximise profit? No, everyone is free to start a bandcamp alternative that does not sell out. But the probability of people wanting to "cash out" or trade equity for other things they want is pretty high. And so that is the world that we see, because it is a reflection of what people want.

Sure, but what people want as individuals and makes sense for them to individually do can nevertheless be harmful to society. That is what people are complaining about generally.

I don’t know how to combat the shift to a single monopoly/duopoly in every market though, but it’s definitely going to make our lives worse. Especially with the erosion of private ownership for us plebeians.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#254

Post by rvense »

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #19

This really sucks. Bandcamp has been my go-to store for buying music for a long time. No dark patterns, lightweight site, free previews, good terms for indie artists. I don't think I can ethically shop there anymore given Epic's ownership and business practices.

My favourite thing is that they have all sorts of social features so you can really engage with other fans and make lists and explore and do things... but you can also just ignore the hell out of that and buy some music that you like.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#255

Post by stjohnswarts »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #167

I haven't been in an active band for over a decade, but back when I was bandcamp was the only way we ever got money online. We had it set to optional to pay, and we would randomly get $5-30 from people around the world. It wasn't much, but it always felt nice. I also like the way they handled payments to artists, I'm not sure if they still do it this way, but back then your first 9 payments would go directly to your…

This is one my concerns. They will lose touch with the little guys. Also, I have several musician friends and I only buy their music from Bandcamp or straight from them. Some prefer not to even bother with CDs/Vinyl and just point people at Bandcamp as preferred vendor as they get a good cut of the money. They seemed to be like a company that wasn't controlled strictly by slick marketing (and empty promises) and bean counters.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#256

Post by johnnyanmac »

ryantgtg wrote: post #190
throwhauser wrote: post #85

I don't know anything about Epic Games, but as a huge fan of Bandcamp, this feels like a bit of a drag. There's something about Bandcamp that seems exactly right. It's an open, fair and creative way to discover and publish music, that is really distinct from the rest of the music business. I'm struggling to see how that fits into a gigantic video game company. If it has to pull in so much money that it "moves the nee…

I’m with you. Never heard of this Epic Games company. This is worrying. I fell behind on downloading all of my 426 purchases on bandcamp, but now I feel a strong desire to catch up.

"Never heard of this Epic Games company. "

Creators of Unreal Engine, one of the two de facto 3rd party game engines in the industry, created way back in the 90's. You very likely played some game or 6 that was made using it. Also the developers of several games themselves like Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Infinity Blade, and Bulletstorm.

But I guess more recently people would call them "The creators of Fortnite", that free to play battle royale that usurped PUBG as "the face" of the genre. They also have a PC game store that is relatively recent and under some ire from consumers for reasons that'd take a whole essay to fully explain.

As a middleman between games and developers, the reasons to purchase a music vendor is numerous. Time will tell what they do with it, but most of their previous aquisitions are hands-off.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#257

Post by heleninboodler »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #231
heleninboodler wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now I'm not sure what to do I mean, why not continue doing what you are doing until the thing that you like actually goes to shit?

Yeah, Epic's acquisitions don't really affect the aquired's day to day. IDK why "protesting a launcher" means disassociating with every single thing a company does. Kind of hard to avoid every single Unreal Engine game, or Blender/Godot or any other company/game they gave no-strings grants to. Or games you played already but are on EGS when they get a PC port.

I certainly understand being skeptical of the "nothing's going to change," which seems almost guaranteed to be wrong, but still, we don't need to lament the downfall before it actually happens, even if we think it's inevitable. If they change the amount of money going to artists, or cripple the feature set, or stop supporting a platform you like, or disable downloads... that's when we lament.

Edit: for one thing, anyone who pops up with a "bandcamp replacement" right now is going to have a very difficult time arguing that their replacement is actually better as long as bandcamp is still exactly the same thing they were emulating.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#258

Post by glenstein »

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…

This does not fit your criteria of flacs with wide selection, however I think Resonate is the most interesting pro-artist option out there at the moment, albiet with an extremely limited catalog:

https://resonate.is/

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#259

Post by stjohnswarts »

bluetidepro wrote: post #234
stjohnswarts wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't care who you are, when you get an offer for millions and millions, I'm sure you'll quickly sing a different tune. I'm sorry, but this kind of thinking is just silly. It's always easy to say this kind of thing from the outside.

Sure but not everyone is driven strictly by profit. I prefer to stay naive to not being motivated only by profit in my life decisions. Yes, I've made decisions that turned down large sums of money to maintain my happiness and sense of being a moral human being.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#260

Post by StopDarkPattern »

mkr-hn wrote: post #6

Too bad. It was one of the few good independent websites left. As always, the CEO said they'll remain independent and blah blah blah in the email, but we know how that goes. Good tip for people on the music side, and something to suggest to them: 1. Set up but do not publish your Bandcamp Subscriptions 2. Add all your music to it 3. Now it's all downloadable in your own user-side Bandcamp library. Check the format: F…

Looks like China is trying to invade the music industry as well.
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