Epic Games buys creative powerhouse ArtStation, all tutorials now free

First Epic Games acquired Oodle, and now it's acquired creative powerhouse ArtStation.

The ArtStation platform is now owned by Epic Games, and developers are mostly pretty happy about the situation. ArtStation serves millions of artists and creatives across the interactive entertainment industry, offering a way to share and connect across a dazzling smorgasboard of fantastic creations. From a layman's perspective, ArtStation offers a unique look at the inner workings of the games industry, but to an artist it's an invaluable lifeline to jobs, portfolio building, and growth. ArtStation is basically the LinkedIn for graphic artists and also lets users sell their brushes and expertise to learning students.

As part of the acquisition, all of ArtStation Learning's tutorials are now 100% free and the platform will remain autonomous outside of Epic. Another huge win for creators is more profits from marketplace sales. Creators now get to keep 88% of revenues from content and products sold on the marketplace (down from 30%), matching the Epic Games Store's favorable 88-12 revenue split for developers. Pro members get a bigger slice with the fee dropping to a meager 8%, leaving 92% of earnings to creators.

"As of today, we're massively increasing the earning potential of sellers on the ArtStation Marketplace. We're dropping our standard fees from 30% to only 12%. For Pro members, the fee reduces from 20% to 8% and 5% for self-promoted sales. See our Earnings Calculator for more details on the new ArtStation Marketplace fees," the announcement reads.

"At Epic, ArtStation will continue to operate as an independently branded platform while collaborating closely with the Unreal Engine team. By joining forces, the ArtStation and Unreal Engine teams will be able to empower the creative community with expanded tools, resources, and connections. And starting today, we will be reducing ArtStation Marketplace fees so creators can get even more value from the ArtStation platform. ArtStation Learning will also be free to all users for the remainder of 2021."

ArtStation joins other Epic initiatives such as Oodle, the high-grade compression technology used by gaming's top elite, and Unreal Engine, which is emboldening developers with its new Unreal Engine 5 iterations. Epic is also working closely with Sony and Microsoft on their respective APIs, SDKs, and other games-making solutions.

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