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Wait what? Epic has taken some rather bold steps since setting up its own storefront – chasing dozen exclusives, shooting Steam with aggressively pro-developer revenue shares, using Fortnite to sue trillion-dollar tech companies. Now they are breaking out of the gaming bubble, adding the monolithic music streaming service Spotify to their platform earlier today.
Not really. It’s right there, just below Hyper Scape.
It’s not a totally unprecedented move, and even Steam has tried non-games from time to time. But these are usually creative toolsets or professional software packages, a bit more niche than the big-ticket streaming services like Spotify. It’s also not a one-time operation – according to the sounds, Epic plans to bring more non-gaming apps to its store.
“Spotify is one of the first non-game apps available on the Epic Games Store, and you can expect more in the future,” Epic wrote in a press release. “We will continue to work with partners to continue to develop the store’s offerings for our players and create a more robust platform for developers. ”
I would understand this movement better if, perhaps, it was accompanied by some kind of special integration. A way to easily stream background music to any Epic Games game you play, maybe, or even just share tracks with your friends. But as it is, I’m not entirely convinced as to why you download Spotify through Epic and not, say, through their own website.
Of course, this decision may be more for Epic than it is for us. By filling their store with more than just games, Epic is positioning itself more towards platforms like the Apple App Store or Google Play. While that still makes it an odd prospect on PC, it aligns with Epic’s plans to bring the Epic Store to mobile, creating an alternative store to those they are currently suing against.
It should be noted that Spotify is a strange ideological choice for this first partnership, spirit. While Epic boss Tim Sweeney still espouses the benefits of paying more fair shares to developers, Spotify has become notorious for paying pitiful amounts to artists per stream. Getting a household name like Spotify on Epic must have been tempting, however, enough that Epic didn’t even take its usual 12% revenue cut from subscriptions made through its store.
Who knows. Maybe next year’s Spotify Wrapped will show you which artist you’ve played the most during Fortnight sessions. What a world that would be.