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Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

variety.com

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Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#281

Post by jamal-kumar »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #226
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.)

Historically, Epic's aquisitions are given freedom to do whatever they were doing beforehand, so I wouldn't be worried. Quixel now just gives out tons of free materials and assets, Sketchfab is untouched, Artstation forums don't behave any differently, Hypersense's tech was likely leveraged and used in Metahuman. People concerned over the "Exclusivity deals" on the game store end aren't looking at the "Developer" acq…

It's a company that's been successful, while also mired in a variety of legal problems and scandals, often related to how their games are so deliberately addictive.... I don't doubt what you say about their good intentions, I just honestly worry more about any fallout from that kind of business practice leading to an acquisition.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#282

Post by selfhoster11 »

prox wrote: post #53
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HDTracks for purchasing and downloading. Deezer and Tidal provide high fidelity streaming.

Tidal pays better than most other streaming services afaik. It’s sad to see Bandcamp go. Because in tech an acquisition means loss of that independence.

Bandcamp was the only music store I was happy to throw my money at. I guess the ol' tricorn hat may be getting dusted off real soon if anything material about the company or the selection changes.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#283

Post by almet »

It's really sad to see these almost "public goods" platforms be acquired by other companies, which will probably turn them in something else at some point because their vision isn't the same.

This could probably be avoided by using different strategies. For instance, if Bandcamp was an NGO of some sort, or has a social contract attached to it, etc. it could have terms for not being acquired.

You, capitalism. Again.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#284

Post by ketzo »

riskable wrote: post #236
ketzo wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The costs and benefits around a game going F2P are too numerous to list in a HN comment, but I think it is extremely reductive to call it a “middle finger” just because you spent $20 four years and 500 hours of game time ago. More people playing the game you like is very good for that game receiving more investment/developer time. Shorter queue times, more revenue for the game in the form of mtx, and gameplay in a co…

Making Rocket League F2P meant that skilled players could register as many new accounts for themselves as they wanted and "rank up" their buddies in competitive matchmaking. This completely ruins the competitive aspect of the game since it's far too common to join a game and get completely crushed by some grand champion playing on a brand new account, teamed up with his friends. Another problem it enables is trolls:…

Those are problems, true, but literally every modern competitive ladder deals with the three problems you're describing: smurfs, boosting, and trolls. Overwatch dealt with all three even when the game cost $40!

In return for those problems, the game gets an instant, massive increase in players. Monetization usually increases, since modern mtx are usually much more effective than either subscription or one-time-purchase models.

I'm not saying there are zero problems with going F2P. Obviously there are. But just as obviously, since so many studios have chosen to go that route, the benefits are worth it for the company. If the revenue benefits are worth it, they keep developing the game, keep running the servers, keep fixing bugs, rather than just letting the game die. That seems pretty good.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#285

Post by matt_heimer »

g_sch wrote: post #13

I'm having a little trouble understanding the motivation for this move. Did Bandcamp have a poor revenue/profit outlook and were they looking to scale? Was this just an exit for founders? I was under the impression that they had a relatively stable and profitable business, and strongly valued their branding and positioning as independent.

From the Epic side - they have to be looking at selling music in-game as a source of additional revenue. You'll be able to buy cassette tapes or virtual vinyl for your characters boombox. Of course there will be a matching dance you can also buy but maybe there will be a discount bundle.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#286

Post by drcongo »

samirsd wrote: post #135
indigochill wrote: post #46

Well, crap. Bandcamp was the perfect place for hosting my music. Hopefully Itch starts hosting music if they haven't already. I'd switch immediately. Are there any other good places to host low-budget indie music? Soundcloud doesn't count because I get at least one spammer interacting with my tracks every single time I upload something. It's got to the point that I've started only uploading things secretly and sharin…

https://mixtape.ai big new release coming this month with artist-side album drafting and merch features

Is that website supposed to be almost entirely empty with just an App Store button?

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#287

Post by alternatetwo »

duped wrote: post #151
plainnoodles wrote: post #77

This is absurdly sad to me. I like to own my media (in the most practical sense that current IP laws let me do so). I run a Plex server and use PlexAmp as my primary way of listening to music, and my criteria are always this: * FLAC or similar, I want this to be a lossless preservation of what was on the best-available source. * No DRM. No mandated player. Just let me download a dang file. * "Real" flac: this is tech…

Some people put a 17.5kHz low pass and high pass at 20Hz on the master. It's dumb and you have very few reasons to do it, but people still do it and keep it as default settings in "mastering chains" that get passed around and dropped on random tracks. So you can't be sure if you're looking at a reencoding or a lossy file or not.

You can still see the difference in a high detail spectrogram like RX9 produces. There are some artifacts beyond just cutting off above 20khz.

There are also full range mp3s, since iTunes by default doesn't apply a hard 20khz lowpass like LAME does.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#288

Post by BaseballPhysics »

airstrike wrote: post #273
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet so many modern day startups have no viable exit strategy beyond acquisition Bandcamp was already profitable and has been for years. The pandemic dramatically increased their sales. They were doing fine. Why did they need an exit ? That is the real flaw of SV thinking: that simply being a profitable, going concern is somehow inadequate. The result is monopoly accretion as small companies are repeatedly swall…

> Why did they need an exit? Because the people who like to start new companies and take lots of risks generally tend to not like running stable businesses and dealing with FP&A managers, lawyers, compliance and tax experts

> Because the people who like to start new companies and take lots of risks generally tend to not like running stable businesses and dealing with FP&A managers, lawyers, compliance and tax experts

... in SV/the tech industry.

That's kinda my entire point.

Stealing someone else's analogy: If you went to a bank to get a small business loan to open up a coffee shop, and you told them "Yeah, I'm hoping to take a bunch of your money, open a coffee shop, never return a profit, and then sell it to Starbucks", you'd get laughed out of the room.

In SV that's a business model.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#290

Post by almet »

glenstein wrote: post #258
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/

Resonate is nice and I like the fact that it's a co-op, but there is something missing that was present on band-camp, unless I missed it: the possibility to pay for real albums that will be shipped to you, or for you to download the .flac or .mp3 files to add to your library.

It's actually possible to download the files but the price is fixed and it seems to be track by track.

So it looks more like a replacement for Spotify to me.

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