Epic Games Corporation has decided to get rid of two major platforms for 3D artists - ArtStation and Sketchfab. The new owner of these services is KitBash, a company specializing in the creation of 3D assets for games and films.
Epic Games Corporation has decided to get rid of two major platforms for 3D artists - ArtStation and Sketchfab. The new owner of these services is KitBash, a company specializing in the creation of 3D assets for games and films.
The relevant information appeared on the official KitBash blog , and was also confirmed by Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney on the X network.
According to an official statement, the transition of the platforms to the new owner will not affect current users. All portfolios, libraries, subscriptions and basic workflows on both ArtStation and Sketchfab will continue to function unchanged. KitBash promises to expand opportunities for artists at every stage of content creation by integrating these platforms with its own products (KitBash3D and Greyscalegorilla).
At the same time, the main news is Epic Games' decision to sell these assets. The company's CEO Tim Sweeney explained this move as a global restructuring of the technological architecture on the eve of the release of the new Unreal Engine 6.
According to Sweeney, Epic Games is focused on creating new open standards for the 3D future. In particular, a new version control system called Lore is being developed (for handling content at exabyte scales), as well as standardized file formats for integrating assets directly into games. The company's own marketplace — Fab (the successor to the Unreal Engine Marketplace) — will remain in the Epic ecosystem.
“We’ve been working incredibly hard to build these new foundations in parallel with UE6. And we’ve come to the conclusion that the KitBash team will be able to better serve the communities of sites like ArtStation (for artists) and Sketchfab (for commercial collaboration and hosting) because they are technologically independent and not as tightly tied to our internal roadmap,” explained Tim Sweeney.
The CEO of Epic Games also emphasized that their Fab marketplace will function as a partner for other platforms (such as KitBash or Unity's Asset Store), rather than trying to "own" the market.
