Will Epic's ownership of Bandcamp affect the music industry for better or worse?
Danielle Partis
News Editor
Wednesday 9th March 2022
Epic Games
Last week saw Epic Games acquire independent music platform Bandcamp, the latest in the Fortnite maker's line of creator-driven deals.
Bandcamp was founded in 2007 to give musicians a place to sell music fairly, at a time where distribution started to pivot to digital. From the off, the site has been designed to give creators full power over how they sell their work, and for how much.
It also became a home for indie developers to sell soundtracks; music from Bastion, Terraria, Super Meat Boy and Undertale are but a few examples of games that have had OSTs sold through Bandcamp.
While the terms of the Epic deal were not disclosed, Bandcamp co-founder Ethan Diamond was keen to affirm that the services that Bandcamp creators depend on won't be going anywhere -- including Bandcamp Friday, a monthly initiative launched in 2020 where the site takes 0% of any artist's sales for 24 hours. But even with that, many creators were left feeling uncertain about the site's future under such a large umbrella.
Kenny Young
Kenny Young, sound designer and composer on games including Astro's Playroom and Little Big Planet, questions the announcement's promise to build more opportunities for creators, and whether this deal is more about games than traditional artists.
"It's tempting to think that this purchase must be games-related, but the more I think about it the more unlikely that seems," Young tells GamesIndustry.biz.
"It's certainly possible that they'll explore low friction ways of getting Bandcamp music into games -- this would have to be an 'opt-in' for artists as Bandcamp don't own any of the music on their service and therefore don't have the right to licence it without
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