Fortnite Follows Second Life's Footsteps Further Hosting "Live" In-Game Concert of RL Popstar Marshmello

First came in-game dance clubs, then came private, user-customizable islands, now right on schedule, Fortnite is following Second Life's footsteps yet again with Marshmello, a rising EDM star, who's reportedly performing live in-game this weekend:

Info is continuously coming out about the event as we speak, but here’s what we know so far. The event will begin at 2 PM ET on Saturday, though it’s not clear how long it will run for. It takes place in Pleasant Park, though you may see the lights/hear the music from anywhere on the map... There’s apparently a cosmetic bundle for the event which will include a Marshmello skin, pickaxe and spray. No word on pricing. There are some leaked animations that show “DJ dancing” for lack of a better term which would appear to be how Marshmello himself will act on stage.

Since Fortnite Battle Royale is run on thousands of separate servers, it's debatable how "live" Marshmello is actually going to be, beyond the lucky 100 (or so) players who get to be in his actual server. The chatter in Reddit's Fortnite board strongly suggests his music files are already embedded in the game client; if that's right, there may be hundreds or even thousands of automated copies of Marshmello's performing avatars synced to canned audio files of his show, to serve such a huge audience. (Fortnite peak user concurrency is a seriously insane 8 million+.)

Hat tip Forbe's Paul Tassi, who says this "has the potential to be a very cool, very unique moment in gaming, a live concert embedded in a game where millions attend in real-time." Millions of audience members are unique, and it's definitely cool, but far as real-time concerts by real world music stars in online games, we need to go back to ancient times (by which I mean 2006) and Suzanne Vega in Second Life:

The Vega concert had maybe 80 whole people attending, and everyone had to remove every single attachment to prevent lag. (Lots of bald female avatars in the audience!) But server capacity and system architecture has improved quite a bit in the last 13 years.

Comments

[Willliam Burns]

April 2006. Active Worlds
Aztec Rising Concert.
I was in charge of VR5 Online at the time.
We had about 98-100 present at the peak.

Video here:
https://youtu.be/r5lwSAxAnUM

Also we had real world merch available virtually at the venue.

[madeline blackbart]

I think as mainstream culture and the average person becomes more and more involved in the virtual world we're going to see a lot more of this retreading of old ground being called "new". Things like virtual "influences" and virtual popstars and concerts aren't new to those of us who have been playing in virtual worlds like Second Life but they are to mainstream media and the "average" person. TBH I'm noticing it more and more and it's interesting how what used to be something "misfits and shut ins" did (AKA living a virtual life) is just now becoming commonly accepted. I think years from now even if SL isn't around anymore we'll still see concepts from it integrated into mainstream life.

[Rover]

Most people are too busy doing things in real life nowadays to waste all day online. (Sad Truth)