Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

variety.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 485 posts

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#401

Post by bobsmooth »

branon wrote: post #243
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…

Consider alternatives to Plex (Jellyfin being the main competitor). With Plex, you may own the media, but Plex, Inc. owns the authentication. You're not allowed to access the service running on your own hardware unless you can log in with a Plex account. Also: losing What was indeed a massive blow, but there are others still carrying that torch...

Emby is pretty good.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#402

Post by mfost »

joveian wrote: post #378
ryantgtg wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. Ok, I guess have heard of them then. I played Unreal! And I've heard many mentions of the Unreal engine. > but most of their previous aquisitions are hands-off Thanks. Given the immediate negative reactions that people have to this news (see the countless "what is a bandcamp alternative?" posts going around right now), I wonder how it will impact one of Bandcamp's most important assets: their Daily blog. F…

My negative reaction is related to Epic's microtransaction (aka gambling, often aimed at children) and DRM use as well as being 40% owned by Tencent so your puchases now will help fund genocide.

But they don't do gambling. Why is that lie still going on years after it was first invented?

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#403

Post by siquick »

noodles_nomore wrote: post #391

Bandcamp is one of the few sites still in existence that allow you to purchase things without making an account. I expect this will be the first feature to go. So long, Bandcamp.

It would be very hard to do this without taking VC money (server costs alone must be massive) - and to take VC money means you're most likely going to be hard on the metrics, which is the opposite of what Bandcamp did and what has made Bandcamp unique up to now.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#404

Post by johnnyanmac »

mfost wrote: post #402
joveian wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My negative reaction is related to Epic's microtransaction (aka gambling, often aimed at children) and DRM use as well as being 40% owned by Tencent so your puchases now will help fund genocide.

But they don't do gambling. Why is that lie still going on years after it was first invented?

The original story was that Fortnite had lootboxes for a few years (in that time where most of the industry was trying it out after Valve and Blizzard saw success). Fortnite is where the "lootboxes are gambling" debates really hit the high gear.

sometime in 2019 that random aspect was removed, however. To my knowledge, there is still a rotating shop of skins to purchase with premium currency. But you know what you are getting now. It's not too much different from how free MOBA's monetize their games with a bunch of cosmetic skins.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#405

Post by heleninboodler »

pketh wrote: post #223
Invictus0 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SV is not a homogeneous thought-entity. Maybe the founders were tired of running it or wanted to move on to do something else. Businesses get bought and sold all the time and don't need to be a lifetime commitment for the founder (it would still get sold or shutdown at that point anyway).

You make a good point, but I wonder what the real world business equivalent of this is? Is it the destiny of every successful café to become acquired by Starbucks one day? (assuming there's not a better comparison I should be thinking of)

The goal of every venture-backed tech startup is to reach an exit. That's the whole explanation of "why." You can go back in time and ask them "why did you have to take VC money" in 2008 and that might be an interesting question. But once they did, there's no surprise whatsoever that they went for the exit today.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#406

Post by mkr-hn »

Apocryphon wrote: post #163
fundamental wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I don't buy that line of argument. The endgame for a business is not a binary choice between acquisition or taking over the entire market.

> The endgame for a business is not a binary choice between acquisition or taking over the entire market. That's been the state of tech ever since Web 2.0 or so.

Bandcamp is almost as old as Web 2.0. That's why people are so confused about this. Why does a profitable 15-year-old company need to sell? They didn't say in the post, so all we can do is be frustrated.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#407

Post by QuikAccount »

moogly wrote: post #329
QuikAccount wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would be a completely different situation than what I described.

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#409

Post by MattRix »

superkuh wrote: post #279
johnnyanmac wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Tim Sweeney has been pretty crystal clear about his feelings disliking walled gardens and monopolies for at least a decade, since well before the Epic Games Store or Fortnite existed. He is very much a tech guy, not some super savvy cutthroat business guy (as is pretty clear when you look at their battle with apple, which made absolutely no financial sense)

Re: Epic Games acquires Bandcamp

#410

Post by joveian »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #404
mfost wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they don't do gambling. Why is that lie still going on years after it was first invented?

The original story was that Fortnite had lootboxes for a few years (in that time where most of the industry was trying it out after Valve and Blizzard saw success). Fortnite is where the "lootboxes are gambling" debates really hit the high gear. sometime in 2019 that random aspect was removed, however. To my knowledge, there is still a rotating shop of skins to purchase with premium currency. But you know what you ar…

Thanks, I'm glad they aren't doing the random aspect now. Microtransactions are still a horrible way to design games but at least it is something if you know what you are getting. However, even if gambling isn't exactly the right word for the current situation there do still seem to be more recent stories about kids running up quite a bill on Fortnite. They still seem to be trying to get kids to spend as much money as possible. A quick search finds that this came up in Epic vs. Apple:

https://www.thegamer.com/judge-fortnites-microtransactions-c...

Post reply on HN