Epic Games buys Bandcamp... Wait, what?

[iamaom]

This is pretty much par for the course when companies are bought out. In a year those words will ring as hollow as they always have.

"Don't worry, we don't get rid of porn" -yahoo after buying tumblr.

 

[oompa]

This is interesting. Hopefully it turns out well.

I absolutely love the concept that Bandcamp provides and I have bought a tonne of music there over the years, I think it is a brilliant way for the non-pop music industry to transition into the digital age.. but the site is also pretty.. uh.. for lack of a better word, shoddy. Or perhaps, old I should say. Many times the way the site is structured is just so late 90s. A website for music listening and it has no volume slider? (you have to get a 3rd party one), links are rarely structured, I often get that thing where when I click an artist/band's "discography" link I just get dumped at the record label's releases or something etc. I wouldn't mind a site infrastructure rework, but obviously it must not come at the expense of the artists owning their product, their way of reaching their audience and of course their revenue.

That part said, the ease with which I can just buy an album or a song and the optional pricing set by the artist is fantastic.

I assume Epic isn't in this to lose money, but for what it is worth the platform released as a competitor to steam and they promised to give larger portions of the revenue from games to the devs than steam does, with the largest difference for the smaller indie dev companies in the gaming industry. Hopefully they have some model like that in mind here as well.

 

[Lukhas]

Hopefully they have some model like that in mind here as well.

Bandcamp's cut is already 10-15%, so I'd be surprised for that needle to move even lower. Moreover and despite the frequent giveaways, games on the Epic Store are not noticeably cheaper than they are on Steam in "western" countries, and that's when some aren't more expensive even after getting paid for the temporary exclusivity agreement (Square Enix is particularly egregious in that regard). There may be a difference if you live in a region where Epic may (or may not) offer regional price cuts a bit more often when Steam doesn't; but in general it doesn't make much of a difference in the end for the consumer: companies mostly just pocket the difference instead of passing along even a fraction of the savings.

EDIT: Basically Tim Sweeney has been constantly saying "Trust me bro", but I have yet to see anything different about how he handles his business compared to basically any other company. He was quick to jump on the NFT train as well despite being critical of them, when Steam kicked both NFTs and crytpo payments out of the platform. Perhaps that's one of the difference between a privately and a publicly owned company: neither are paragons of virtue since they're in it to make money and they're apolitical and amoral entities (not immoral), but a publicly owned company has to pursue every avenue to increase their shareholders revenue year on year while a privately owned company may or may not.

 

[oompa]

Bandcamp's cut is already 10-15%, so I'd be surprised for that needle to move even lower. Moreover and despite the frequent giveaways, games on the Epic Store are not noticeably cheaper than they are on Steam in "western" countries, and that's when some aren't more expensive even after getting paid for the temporary exclusivity agreement (Square Enix is particularly egregious in that regard). There may be a difference if you live in a region where Epic may (or may not) offer regional price cuts a bit more often when Steam doesn't; but in general it doesn't make much of a difference in the end for the consumer: companies mostly just pocket the difference instead of passing along even a fraction of the savings.

EDIT: Basically Tim Sweeney has been constantly saying "Trust me bro", but I have yet to see anything different about how he handles his business compared to basically any other company. He was quick to jump on the NFT train as well despite being critical of them, when Steam kicked both NFTs and crytpo payments out of the platform. Perhaps that's one of the difference between a privately and a publicly owned company: neither are paragons of virtue since they're in it to make money and they're apolitical and amoral entities (not immoral), but a publicly owned company has to pursue every avenue to increase their shareholders revenue year on year while a privately owned company may or may not.

for the Bandcamp part I have no power to make any difference, all I can do is hope it gets better.

And that was based on the comment on the Epic games store, it's not about the consumer price. I said the developers. The revenue split on engines and games is more beneficial for game developers, that is the pulling point for Epic games with respect to steam. They offer a larger portion of the revenue back to the devs, it's a relative value to the price, when they sell games cheaper than steam it doesn't affect the revenue for the developer from the intended price, the difference is paid for by Epic, which is why they're losing millions and are in heavy deficit lol

Either way, I've gone further out of my way to defend huge companies that try to control consumption/information etc. than I thought I would I do at heart dislike these things in general, it was just that one of the pulling points for Epic to try and take a cake of the market is not just cheaper prices for the customers but a larger cut for the devs, specifically the smaller devs, so going by that alone this Bandcamp thing might have something positive for artists. Maybe. And yes Bandcamp might be in the 10-15% range, the commision that Epic is taking from devs (or, rather, the numbers circulating) is around 12%, far better than Steam. I mean, reportedly. So you know, maybe we can be cautiously optimistic

 

[Lukhas]

for the Bandcamp part I have no power to make any difference, all I can do is hope it gets better.

And that was based on the comment on the Epic games store, it's not about the consumer price. I said the developers. The revenue split on engines and games is more beneficial for game developers, that is the pulling point for Epic games with respect to steam. They offer a larger portion of the revenue back to the devs, it's a relative value to the price, when they sell games cheaper than steam it doesn't affect the revenue for the developer from the intended price, the difference is paid for by Epic, which is why they're losing millions and are in heavy deficit lol

Either way, I've gone further out of my way to defend huge companies that try to control consumption/information etc. than I thought I would I do at heart dislike these things in general, it was just that one of the pulling points for Epic to try and take a cake of the market is not just cheaper prices for the customers but a larger cut for the devs, specifically the smaller devs, so going by that alone this Bandcamp thing might have something positive for artists. Maybe. And yes Bandcamp might be in the 10-15% range, the commision that Epic is taking from devs (or, rather, the numbers circulating) is around 12%, far better than Steam. I mean, reportedly. So you know, maybe we can be cautiously optimistic

To bounce on the dev side on things, I cannot untie it from the consumer side of things. We obviously know that Epic generously throw money at devs in hope to make their platform attractive... to customers, who aren't buying any of it at the moment (despite collecting their free games). Devs are not even attempting to attract the customer: the price of the games is indication enough that they're happy to collect the exclusivity deal cheque, then attempt to collect every single penny possible by keeping prices the same on all platforms, and then move on (and maybe do a Steam sale two years after release or something). The money has to come from somewhere, and as we've all said it's Fortnite rather than actual game sales. Until that changes, there's no reason to be optimistic, not even cautiously; only patient and let time tell... at best. At the very least, I don't find a reason to be optimistic: my only source of optimism would be to be selected by the hand of Tim Shafer to receive an exclusivity cheque even if it meant pissing off my audience in the process. At least that way I can pay for the bills next months, even if it costs me long term.