For instance, electro star David Guetta recently partnered with the startup Stage11 to develop his own musical experience in the metaverse. The “David Guetta Experience” is described by the startup as “a Music Metaverse Adventure where players join Guetta on a mission to save the future of music – in every possible universe”.
They will be guided by a high definition 3D avatar of the French DJ and will fight alongside famous musicians such as Snoop Dogg, Akon and Ne-Yo.
For Jonathan Belolo, co-founder and CEO of Stage11, this immersive experience is a taste of what’s to come for music lovers in the not-so-distant future.
“Photorealistic, interactive, game-like music events are just around the corner, it’s very exciting,” he said in a statement. “Once in a generation, the way we interact with music is revolutionised. There was radio, TV, mp3s, YouTube – and now, with Stage11, we get to play a role in the next iteration of music, enhanced and developed for the metaverse.”
Reinventing music once again
The startup is far from the only company in the music industry to be making its move into the metaverse. Warner and Universal Music are hoping to tap into the new revenue streams promised by the development of this virtual world, as is Spotify.
The Swedish streaming giant recently launched its own virtual world on Roblox, one of the most widely used digital spaces, along with Decentraland and The Sandbox. It takes the form of several islands where players can interact with avatars of their favourite artistes or access new content.
Musicians are also becoming more inventive in changing the game when it comes to experiencing music. Twenty One Pilots, Lil Nas X and 24kGoldn have all performed in virtual concerts on Roblox, while Justin Bieber has taken to the Wave platform, in which he has invested.
Ariana Grande made a prominent appearance on Fortnite, as did Gen Hoshino, Marshmello and, most notably, Travis Scott. Indeed, the monumental show given by the American rapper on April 23, 2020 in the online video game remains a standout event – it was seen by 12.3 million unique players when it first aired and by 27.7 million viewers after four replays.
Although it is still early days for these emerging virtual worlds, many in the music industry already feel that these technological advances raise as much hope as they do questions about the future of the sector.
“Right now, there’s no clear line whether the metaverse is gonna be there for the top 1% of artistes like we already see in our current reality,” Inder Phull, the co-founder and CEO of Pixelynx, told “Rolling Stone”. The company is “a new venture that is focused on blurring the lines between music, blockchain and gaming”, according to its website.
Whatever the case, the promises of the metaverse and the digitalisation of users’ lives suggest a dizzying transformation could be in store for music. Bloomberg Intelligence estimates that the potential market opportunity for the metaverse could reach US$800 billion by 2024.
And it’s safe to assume that the music industry will play a major role in this growing market – after all, the avatars populating the metaverse will need to shake their stuff just as much as people do.