Gamefam, working with Roblox and Warner Music Group (WMG), has launched a new use case for metaverse events — an upcoming VR concert — to showcase their technologies as the future of immersive collaboration.
The Los Angeles-based metaverse game developer and content publisher has worked with some of the world’s top franchises over the past few years, including Sonic Speed Simulator, Funky Friday, Hot Wheels Open World, and Weapon Fighting Simulator.
It also operates the world’s largest network of Roblox metaverse games, totalling 25 million daily game sessions. It also holds over 30 live games surpassing 115 million hours across Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft servers.
Expanding on these successes, it has now begun tapping some of the world’s top artists and musicians to test the limits of serious gaming technologies.
To discuss the latest use case for its metaverse concert technologies, XR Today is pleased to interview:
- Alli Guglielmino, Vice-President of Growth, Gamefam
- Duane Stinnett, Creative Director for Special Projects, Gamefam
In our conversation, we explored several use cases of the Roblox metaverse platform and Gamefam’s role in crafting world-class immersive concerts for pop superstar Bebe Rexha. The executives also discussed the rise of metaverse concerts and how they can boost brand awareness for partner firms.
Warner Music Group’s (WMG) novel Roblox metaverse, Harmony Hills, is set to debut the concert across multiple platforms and devices. Many will include gaming consoles, VR headsets, mobiles, and tablets.
The concert comes amid a massive spike in interest in extended reality (XR) technologies. Artists such as Avenged Sevenfold, Snoop Dogg, MUSE, Arianna Grande, Ozzy Osbourne, Shaquille O’Neal, Fatboy Slim, Eminem, Justin Bieber, and dozens more have leveraged immersive technologies to boost fan engagement.
Gamefam, Roblox, and the Immersive Concert
To start, Guglielmino explained how Gamefam had developed its “creator-led” metaverse for both novel and branded experiences across Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft.
She stated that her company “was the first professional Roblox developer” with the largest and most extensive portfolio of Roblox games in the sector.
The company has topped 25 billion lifetime gameplay sessions across its portfolio of games.
She also said Gamefam’s partnership with WMG launched in January to debut its Rhythm City virtual space. It later rebranded as Harmony Hills, where fans and major artists across the music industry can interact remotely.
Guglielmino added that fans can access interactive formats, social roleplaying experiences, and other perks.
She explained,
“It was a natural fit for Bebe to be the next star to perform in Harmony Hills, as she’s a passionate fan of the metaverse having launched her very own Bebeverse earlier this year”
Following the launch of Bebe Rexhe’s latest album ‘Bebe,’ Gamefam worked directly with the superstar and WMG to introduce her to Harmony Hills. This involved executive set decisions, direction, setlist selection, digital fashion, and virtual assets.
Gamefam’s direction aimed to design the virtual backdrop, boost interactivity, and accommodate virtual concertgoers to the event.
Setting the Stage for Bebe Rexha
Stinnett added that his company valued “community experience” for in-person and metaverse concerts. Leveraging Roblox allowed his company to “have millions of players” join the shared immersive space to attend “the exact same performance, at the exact same time, and interact with each other.”
Speaking further on the need for immersive concerts, Stinnett said that the Metaverse allowed their client, Bebe Rexha, to interact with millions of fans “from all over the world.”
Fans could attend the virtual concerts “to experience her music when they might not get the chance to in real life,” he added. Additionally, the artist could “reach a massive community of new fans” via the virtual performance.
He explained further,
“We’ve been able to evolve the traditional concert experience of passively standing and watching, to an interactive gameplay experience where fans can jump on speakers and be blasted through the air, hop from fountain to fountain, and complete scavenger hunts to unlock unique virtual items”
These experiences augmented the concert experience to build a greater sense of community with global fans.
Stinnett continued that Gamefam employed traditional optical motion-capturing devices for communicating the performer’s face, body language, and dance moves. Doing so allowed metaverse concerts to feel “real and personal,” he added.
He told XR Today: “The players recognize those same dance moves and the performer’s body language from real life.”
In a statement as seen by XR Today, Bebe Rexha said: “As a huge fan of the metaverse, I couldn’t be more thrilled to share my first Roblox concert with some of my biggest fans and all of the new ones I’ll meet along the way in the wonderful Harmony Hills.”
Roblox End User Comments
When asked about specific metrics involved in metaverse concerts, namely as an end-user of Roblox, Guglielmino outlined figures and benefits to the platform.
Roblox currently reaches over 66 million daily active users (DAU), allowing brands and talent to reach audiences digitally and at scale with “experiential marketing.”
She reiterated Stinnett’s view on immersive concerts, stating that virtual events delivered creative sets that “wouldn’t be possible in real life.” The platform made experiences such as flying on the wing of a plane, joining a roller rink, or speaking with people across nations possible, using real-time immersive collaboration.
Gamefam also developed three of the top five concerts on the Roblox platform, according to player ratings.
Scaling up the Music Metaverse
When asked how the company plans to scale up adoption rates for metaverse concerts, Stinnett commented that the next evolutionary phase would involve “real-time performance capture, rather than capturing beforehand.”
With this feature, performers could interact with audiences “as the concert unfolds and made decisions on the spot.” This would provide “spontaneity and improvisation much like in real life.”
Stinnett added,
“This will also allow us to deliver connected experiences between the metaverse and in real life (IRL). The real-time performance capture tech is already available and improving as we speak, and we’re actively looking to incorporate it into our metaverse concerts and activations going forward”
Gamefam-Roblox Super Bowl Saweetie Special
The comments come after several successful concert ventures saw an influx of users to the Roblox platform. For example, the Saweetie Super Bowl Concert—the biggest-ever Roblox concert in history—earned a 96 percent player rating from attendees.
Attendance of the virtual event surpassed 7.5 million visits in a single week and remains the biggest concert in the last 12 months. This overtook major concerts from Elton Jon, The Chainsmokers, and K-Pop band NCT127.
Gamefam designed the sets for the concert: a collaboration between the National Football League (NFL), WMG, Intuit, and the world-famous rapper. Also, the concert premiered at the Super Bowl LVII event, leading to a record-breaking number of attendees and views on the then-Rhythm City platform.
Intuit, the concert’s brand sponsor, boosted brand awareness roughly 2.6 times, ecosystem product awareness by 1.8 times, and bagged over 400 million brand engagements, compared to in-person events.
Roblox Appoints Christina Wootton to Grow Partnerships
The news also comes after Roblox appointed Christina Wootton as Chief Partnerships Officer to expand the company’s outreach. Roblox aims to team up with new educational and business development clients through her work.
Furthermore, she will take on Business Development duties with Scott Rubin, Vice-President of Business Development and Rebecca Kantar, Vice President, Education, in the company.
She said in a recent statement that her company had “seen dozens of top brands and partners building communities” and creating numerous formats on the platform.
“We firmly believe that all brands will eventually have a presence on Roblox,” she added.
Wootton concluded,
“Our partnerships work continues to accelerate as we experiment with new technologies like Immersive Ads and grow our partner community and brand education through our new Roblox Partner Program. Ultimately, our team’s work is about creating new ecosystems for people to communicate and connect with one another, as well as their favorite brands and talent.
The ecosystems would also “represent the future” of expression in the digital fashion, beauty, music, sports, travel, experiential entertainment, and educational industries, she concluded. Christina has achieved this by working with major Fortune 500 companies, including NIKE, Gucci, Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros, and Universal Pictures.
