Bandcamp sells to Epic: can a video game company save independent music?
Musos and gamers were left scratching their heads last Wednesday as Bandcamp, the online record store hailed by independent artists as a bankable alternative to the razor-thin royalties of streaming, announced its acquisition by Epic Games, makers of the online gaming phenomenon Fortnite.
Bandcamp CEO Ethan Diamond framed the deal as a boon for artists, saying that the two US companies shared a vision of building “the most open, artist-friendly ecosystem in the world”. A blogpost from Epic underlined the need for “fair and open platforms” to enable “creators to keep the majority of their hard-earned money”.
But Bandcamp users reacted with shock and disappointment to the sale of the indie juggernaut, lamenting the loss of “our” store, as drummer and Spotify critic Damon Krukowski tweeted.
“We all just got sold,” lamented media theorist McKenzie Wark. Bemused gamers and tech experts, meanwhile, wondered what possible uses a company such as Epic – itself 40% owned by Chinese gaming megacorp Tencent – might have for the direct-to-fan marketplace for MP3s of niche musical genres like vaporwave and chiptune.
Since its founding in 2008, Bandcamp has become a cornerstone of the global underground music economy through its “pay-what-you-want” download structure and low commissions, taking a 15% cut of every sale. During the pandemic, the San Francisco-based company earned kudos for waiving that fee on the first Friday of every month, generating millions of dollars for artists, as well as donating to racial justice campaigns including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Epic has its own track record as a plucky indie, having remained largely in the hands of CEO Tim Sweeney since its founding in 1991. Like Bandcamp, Epic takes a relatively
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