Epic Games lay off 16% of employees and divest Bandcamp
Epic Games have laid off around 16% of employees and announced their plans to divest audio distribution platform Bandcamp. Songtradr, a music licensing platform and marketplace company, has acquired the platform.
Bandcamp was acquired by Epic Games just 18 months ago, in March 2022. Just one year later, in March of this year, employees of the platform formed a union.
In a statement on their website, Epic Games shared the email that was sent out to Epic employees by CEO Tim Sweeney. It stated, “For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we ear, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators. I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic.”
Epic Games stated their intent to focus on shipping their most succeed initiatives, the next Fortnite Season and Fortnite Chapter 5, Del Mar, Sparks, and Juno. While they will be divesting from Bandcamp and spinning off most of SuperAwesome, none of their core businesses will be cut.
Around 830 employees will be laid off, with 250 of them from Bandcamp and SuperAwesome.
In their own statement, Songtradr stated their intent to “continue to operate Bandcamp as a marketplace and music community with an artist-first revenue share.”
Paul Wiltshire, Songtradr CEO, added, “The acquisition of Bandcamp will help Songtradr continue to grow its suite of services for artists. I’m a passionate musician myself, and artistry and creativity have always been at the heart of Songtradr. Bandcamp will join a team of music industry veterans and artists who have deep expertise in music licensing, composition, rights management, and distribution.”
Songtradr also plan to offer artists the option to license their music to all forms of media, enabling them to “continue to own and control their music rights, and increase their earning capacity from Songtradr’s global licensing network.”
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