Wait what? Epic has taken some pretty bold steps since setting up their own storefront – hunting exclusives at dozens, shooting on Steam with aggressively developer-friendly revenue shares, using Fortnite to sue trillion-dollar tech companies. Now they are branching out of the games bubble, adding the monolithic music streaming service Spotify to their platform earlier in the day.
No really. It’s there, just below Hyper Scape.
It’s not a completely unprecedented move, and even Steam has run into non-games from time to time. But they tend to be creative tool sets or professional software packages, a bit more niche than broad-based streaming services like Spotify. This isn’t a one-off either – it sounds like Epic plans to bring more non-games apps to their Store.
“Spotify is one of the first non-game applications to be offered 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 grow the store’s offering for our players and create a more robust platform for developers.”
I would understand this step better if it might involve some sort of special integration. A way to easily knock background music on whatever Epic Games game you’re playing, or even just share tunes with your friends. But as it stands, I’m not completely sold on why you would download Spotify through Epic and not through their own website.
Of course, this move may be more for Epic’s sake than ours. By filling their store with more than just games, Epic positions itself further against platforms like Apple’s App Store or Google Play. While that still makes it a strange prospect on PC, it is in line with Epic’s plans to bring the Epic Store to mobile and create an alternative store to the stores they are currently litigating against.
It should be noted that Spotify is a weird ideological choice for this first collaboration, remember. While Epic boss Tim Sweeney is forever embracing the benefits of paying developers fairer shares, Spotify has become infamous for paying artists’ pitiful amounts per stream. However, getting a household name like Spotify on Epic must have been tempting enough that Epic doesn’t even get their usual 12% revenue cut from subscriptions through their store.
Who knows. Maybe next year Spotify Wrapped will show you which artist you have played the most during Fortnight sessions. What a world that would be.