Bandcamp, the online record store and music community, has announced that it’s been acquired by Epic Games, developer of Fortnite and the widely-used Unreal Engine game engine. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.
In a statement on the Bandcamp blog, company co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond said: “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 will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community, and I will continue to lead our team. The products and services you depend on aren’t going anywhere, we’ll continue to build Bandcamp around our artists-first revenue model (where artists net an average of 82% of every sale), you’ll still have the same control over how you offer your music, Bandcamp Fridays will continue as planned, and the Daily will keep highlighting the diverse, amazing music on the site.
“However, behind the scenes we’re working with Epic to expand internationally and push development forward across Bandcamp, from basics like our album pages, mobile apps, merch tools, payment system, and search and discovery features, to newer initiatives like our vinyl pressing and live streaming services.”
Diamond went on to say that, since Bandcamp was founded in 2008, it’s paid close to $1 billion to artists and labels and that, with Epic, the company hopes to build “the most open, artist-friendly ecosystem in the world”.
Epic games, meanwhile, said: “Fair and open platforms are critical to the future of the creator economy. Epic and Bandcamp share a mission of building the most artist friendly platform that enables creators to keep the majority of their hard-earned money. Bandcamp will play an important role in Epic’s vision to build out a creator marketplace ecosystem for content, technology, games, art, music and more.”
