Epic Games has announced that it's acquiring digital music store Bandcamp, further expanding Epic's portfolio of companies outside of gaming.
The Unreal Engine, Fortnite, and its own digital storefront are the most well-known aspects of Epic Games, but it's far from the only things that this growing gaming company is involved in. Epic seems to have a penchant for using those Fortnite bucks to snap up as many companies as it can, whether they're involved with gaming or not.
Over the years, it has acquired anti-cheat company Kamu, facial animation company hyprsense, Fall Guys developer Mediatonic, and ArtStation (among others). Now, Epic has announced a surprising new addition to its portfolio: Bandcamp.
Why Epic Games Acquired Bandcamp
The announcement of Epic Games acquiring Bandcamp was made earlier today. Nothing will really change if you're a Bandcamp customer or artist, but this acquisition will help Epic with its plans to sell a wider range of digital content online.
"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," read the announcement from Bandcamp co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond (via Ryan Brown).
Aside from getting a new source of revenue through Bandcamp, Epic Games seems to have grand ambitions of doing more than selling digital games and licensing its Unreal Engine.
"Fair and open platforms are critical to the future of the creator economy," read a portion of Epic's statement. "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."
On an interesting note, Epic Games acquired Rock Band developer Harmonix late last year in order to help with production of content for Fortnite. Considering Epic's involvement with music in all of those Fortnite concerts, we may see some interesting developments in the coming years.
