The 2022 MTV Video Music Awards will be the first show in company history to feature this category. The six nominees are Ariana Grande, Blackpink, BTS, Charli XCX, Justin Bieber and Twenty One Pilots, all of whom have performed virtual concerts over the past year.
While some music lovers might consider virtual concerts a fad, their popularity is undeniable. Over 12.3 million concurrent players watched Travis Scott’s astronomical tour in “Fortnite.” (The YouTube recording of the concert has over 190 million views). Experts say this new wave of virtual performances won’t usurp in-person gigs anytime soon, but it will reshape the future of touring in one way or another.
“I don’t believe in-person gigs will ever be replaced,” wrote Matthew Ball, author of “The Metaverse,” a new book about the burgeoning technology, in an email to The Washington Post. “But virtual ones will continue to grow in popularity, capacity and creativity. And eventually, we’ll see the two merge into something entirely new.
The metaverse is still a vague concept, with several competing definitions championed by companies trying to implement the technology. A common point of reference is the idea of the metaverse as a 3D version of the internet, or an entirely virtual version of real life. Some technologists envision the technology as heralding a future where real and virtual experiences are seamlessly integrated.
Pieces of this vision already exist in the form of video games. Think “Pokémon Go,” the augmented reality game that uses real life as the backdrop for its virtual world. There are also massively multiplayer games such as “World of Warcraft”, where players constantly communicate with each other, barter goods, exchange money for services and own items.
MTV’s latest VMA category appears to define a metaverse performance as any concert taking place in a digital (sometimes interactive) space that is “performed” by digital artists and attended by a digital audience. (Most virtual concerts feature unique mixes of recorded music – not live). “Interactive” and “space” are the keywords here, because without either of those things, the result would just be a pre-rendered CGI gig similar to an animated movie.
If that sounds a lot like a video game to you, then you’re right. Five of the six nominees for Best Metaverse Performance 2022 have hosted their gigs in wildly popular video games. BTS held their nominated performance in “Minecraft,” where the phenomenally successful boy band “sung” and “danced” like blocky avatars. Ariana Grande’s Rift Tour in ‘Fortnite’, which players witnessed live in the popular battle royale game, was a surreal roller coaster in which viewers battled a giant demon on biplanes, danced alongside an Ariana Great digital on a sparkling ocean and struck logic – defying the stairs of an Escher’s Greek dreamscape.
The appeal of virtual concerts lies in convenience and merchandising. For example, Travis Scott’s “Fortnite” concert was free, so all players had to do was show up on time (“Fortnite” itself is also free). Even still, for him and Epic Games, the event was a lucrative merchandising opportunity to sell in-game items like character skins, emotes, and more.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, who has invested heavily in the metaverse, has described the technology as the internet’s great salvation against users who are locked in by ads and content creators caged in by tech companies. social media. Sweeney is not alone in this view. As more video game companies invest in the Metaverse and adjacent technologies, expect to see more virtual gigs in the future.
The 2022 MTV Video Music Awards will take place on August 28 at 8 p.m. EST at the Prudential Center in Newark.