LEVEL UP
by Harry Wood, contributing editor
I
t was April of 2020, the world was reeling, and 12 million people gathered for a concert at a time when no one was allowed to gather at all. But the sheer disregard for CDC guidelines did not set off any alarms because the venue was virtual. Rapper Travis Scott’s Astronomical Tour launched for an audience of millions of fans — inside Fortnite: Battle Royale. Travis Scott’s Astronomical Tour was not the first in-game concert. It wasn’t even the first Fortnite in-game concert — that honor went to DJ Marshmello, whose 2019 show had a paltry 11 million players in attendance a year earlier in 2019. It was, however, the launchpad for what quickly went from phenomenon to established genre: the in-game concert. From Minecraft to Pokémon to Club Penguin, artists excited by unencumbered creative freedom and fans hungry for interaction and entertainment came together in virtual spaces to celebrate in the one part of
the world that COVID-19 could not touch. The forms the virtual concerts took varied widely. Some, like Post Malone’s event for Pokémon’s 25th anniversary, were fully produced theatrical experiences with motion-captured artists, animated special effects, and magical interactions with game characters in a preproduced movie that fans could tune in to watch premiere. Others, like Soccer Mommy’s Club Penguin Concert or 100 GECS’s concert in Minecraft, were in-game gatherings — a stage built in the middle of the world with character avatars gathering on a server to jam out together as music played. The Fortnite concerts were often both: a dedicated server for players to gather in real time to witness a prerecorded, animated concert event. Regardless of the format, the concerts served as momentary respites from a world much in need of them, even if that often wasn’t the intent in the first place.
“It was always, always intended to be virtual,” says JC Smith, senior director of marketing for The Pokémon Co. “The philosophy that we put in when we started planning back in 2019 was we wanted to create a way for people to celebrate together worldwide. COVID-19 made it even more essential. But the reality was that’s kind of what we always like to do before we launch all our games.” Smith and his team have been busy this year. Pokémon has released a series of special performances and music videos in celebration of its 25th birthday with artists like J. Balvin and Katy Perry, plus the company released New Pokémon Snap on the Nintendo Switch, with three more games in the pipeline. But it was important for Pokémon’s lead-off event to be one that gave its fans worldwide a chance to celebrate together, and a virtual format was the solution. “We’d like all our fans to be able to enjoy experiences togeth-
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