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Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

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Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#321

Post by Apocryphon »

munificent wrote: post #312
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…

Every time a small successful tech company gets swallowed by a behemoth, I feel sad. Bandcamp was one of the good ones. If Panic ever gets bought, I'll straight up cry. An ecosystem thrives by having a variety of organisms of different species and sizes interacting. The tech business ecosystem increasingly looks more like a giant pasture of uniform grass being grazed by half a dozen aging tumorous cows.

Everyone's forgotten that monocultures are bad.

For what it's worth, Panic appears to be one of those smaller indie developers similar to say Bare Bones Software or the Omni Group. I think those are sustainable non-startup software shops that can exist and persist on their own.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#322

Post by bb010g »

vintermann wrote: post #313
noyesno wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qobuz offers both streamed music and flac purchases from their store.

Pretty sure it's just a front service for 7digital. All the big streaming services besides Spotify and Tidal are skeleton crew operations.

Qobuz is not associated with 7digital.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#323

Post by andrepd »

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.)

Prepare for a blog post titled Our Amazing Journey.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#324

Post by gen220 »

inasmuch wrote: post #265
inasmuch wrote: post #248

This is tragic for all the many, many reasons everyone else has outlined (DRM, Tencent, etc.), but for me the biggest blow is the loss of the last commercially viable (profitable!), but independent champion of underground and truly independent music. Say all you want about the freedom and quasi-independence of self-publishing to the various streaming corporations, etc., but for years now, the underground scene has th…

If anyone wants to build an alternative/replacement/FOSS tool—whatever kind of remedy for this tragedy—I would eagerly partner up and design it (can't code well, sorry).

It'd be reasonable to structure the development company as a non-profit, to prevent an outcome like Bandcamp's.

I think it may be possible to build the marketplace in a purely FOSS-y way, but it would be illegal to operate it with the wrong configuration values. I'm thinking in particular about the accounting functions, such as earmarking x% of each sale for royalties, and ensuring they go to/from the correct bank accounts.

In other words, one could plausibly release the code as FOSS, but the interface would depend on a set of corporate entities that are configured a particular way, so it would be of limited value to the median person.

It would definitely lower the barrier to entry for people to fork the business, though, which is probably a good thing for the median person.

---

I'd also be down to contribute as an engineer, if such a project already exists with momentum or if somebody wants to start it!

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#325

Post by gman83 »

tombert wrote: post #86
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.

Forgive a bit of ignorance on my end...what has Tencent actually done? I know they own stake in Epic and I've heard there's controversy, but I don't know what it is.

Well, they own WeChat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat#Controversies

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#326

Post by smileybarry »

stonith wrote: post #292
superkuh wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell it to "Rocket League" or look at what happened to PUBG when they used Epic's engine. Epic only makes those things "free", it only buys popular software, because it's goal is getting more people locked into it's walled garden Epic store. It is not because they are nice. As soon as they believe they have a critical mass of Epic store users you can damn well bet they'll treat Quixel, Sketchfab, and Artstation forum…

> look at what happened to PUBG when they used Epic's engine They made a lot of money. > it only buys popular software, because it's goal is getting more people locked into it's walled garden Epic store. The rev stream is royalties from engine use since the free tiers are locked to UE, not EGS.

>> look at what happened to PUBG when they used Epic's engine

> They made a lot of money.

They reportedly worked with Epic Games on technical support for PUBG features, and Epic Games may've ended up using some of them in their own Battle Royale mode:

> Notably, Epic Games updated their in-development title Fortnite, a sandbox-based survival game that included the ability to construct fortifications, to include a battle royale mode that retained the fortification aspects. Known as Fortnite Battle Royale, Epic later released it as a standalone free-to-play game in September 2017. Shortly after its release, Bluehole expressed concerns about the game, acknowledging that while they cannot claim ownership of the battle royale genre, they feared that since they had been working with Epic for technical support of the Unreal engine, that they may have had a heads-up on planned features they wanted to bring to Battlegrounds and could release it first.

Quote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PUBG:_Battlegrounds#Epic_Games...

Article: https://www.pcgamer.com/pubg-exec-clarifies-objection-to-for...

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#327

Post by HellDunkel »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #291
HellDunkel wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because streaming makes more sense and provides far better metrics for artist compensation.

Except for those that, you know, prefer to own music. Their actual core audience.

Can you really own music? See i have been collecting vinyl for 20 years and know about the pleasure it can provide. But with digital files scarcity, age, smell, looks, condition no longer matter. There is nothing left to „own“. The only thing you own is your hard disk.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#328

Post by MikusR »

danso wrote: post #105

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,…

Steam has been running for 18 years and still has problems.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#329

Post by moogly »

QuikAccount wrote: post #252
H1Supreme wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It could be argued that the artist could've released that free song as a single/its own "album". It's not uncommon to see that.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#330

Post by mkr-hn »

posterboy wrote: post #227
mkr-hn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Bandcamp saw people who bought music on Bandcamp as consumers, then Bandcamp didn't understand the people who used it, and this might be for the best.

Conversely, if Sweeney saw users as participants , for lack of a better word, this might be for ... the good? For whatever you have in mind, the question was basically whether you see the users as the owners . I thought it is a misleading question because it is riffing on a legal notion of property and possession, without clearly characterising that property, leaving open any illegal aspect to be pointed out if that…

I can't tell whether there's some point directed at the comment you replied to or if this is some stream of consciousness thing.
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