How does Bandcamp fit in with Epic? | This Week in Business
Brendan Sinclair
Managing Editor
Friday 4th March 2022
This Week in Business is our weekly recap column, a collection of stats and quotes from recent stories presented with a dash of opinion (sometimes more than a dash) and intended to shed light on various trends. Check back every Friday for a new entry.
Between the acquisitions of Zynga, Activision Blizzard, and Bungie, it was a shocking January in games.
February was comparatively quiet, apart from new Mario Kart 8 Deluxe tracks being announced three-and-a-half years after the game's last content update.
March is starting off as another weird one, with Epic Games on Wednesday announcing that it has acquired artist-friendly music storefront Bandcamp.
It was an unexpected pick-up to say the least, but perhaps not the most unusual Epic acquisition in recent memory. (That would have been a shopping mall.)
Thankfully, there are some clues as to what Epic's planning here. Let's start with the Bandcamp announcement of the deal.
QUOTE | "I'm excited to announce that Bandcamp is joining Epic Games, who you may know as the makers of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, and champions for a fair and open Internet." - Bandcamp co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond breaks news of the acquisition to the platform's fans.
It's not uncommon for acquisition announcements to include some flowery prose about the involved parties, but I really hope Diamond insisted on adding another couple zeroes to the acquisition price to have "champions for a fair and open Internet" added to that quote.
Epic wants to win both in court and in the court of public opinion
It's an image Epic has certainly tried to cultivate for itself over the years, even if it's one few people take seriously. As detailed in last year's court case
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