The concert arena is that gaudy online shooter in which mainly children and teenagers fight to see which player survives the longest on a virtual island. That continues to happen. However, performances like J Balvin’s show that the ambitions of Epic Games, the software company behind “Fortnite,” are greater. Yes, “Fortnite” is a video game, its CEO Tim Sweeney affirmed in December 2019, “but ask me again in 12 months.” In May of Corona Year 2020, Epic Games has now launched the gun-free “Party Royale mode.” At the center of this peaceful game world is a lakeside stage with a screen showing concerts by pop musicians. The trailer of Christopher Nolan’s movie “Tenet” also premiered here.

Travis Scott’s performance at the end of April also began on a “Fortnite” stage. But that was quickly pulverized when the rapper landed in the game world in a meteorite of sorts. Unlike J Balvin, whose performance was recorded and visually adapted to the “Fortnite” cosmos with virtual elements, Scott moved through the game world larger than life as a 3-D figure. Together with this giant Scott, the audience stomped across the map during the approximately ten-minute performance, even diving under water.

Show surpasses any concert event, no matter how meticulously choreographed

They could even do it as small editions of their idol. For 1500 to 2500 V-Bucks, the currency of the game, they could make their character look like Travis Scott. 1000 V-Bucks is as much as ten real euros. The game itself is free, but with such purchases within the game world, Epic Games made a turnover of around 1.6 billion euros last year. Just under 28 million people have watched Scott’s performance on various evenings, according to Epic Games. However, that many players won’t fit in front of the same stage for technical reasons. They are distributed to different, similar virtual rooms for the concerts. “Fortnite” only offers space for a maximum of one hundred in such a game environment.

Anyway, the focus of the concerts is on what happens on stage. The event was pre-recorded and designed without having to consider physical laws or material costs. The show therefore surpasses any concert event, no matter how meticulously choreographed. At the end of the performance, the audience dives with the rapper through psychedelic flashing wormholes. Addresses to the audience – “Fortnite, are you ready?” – but fizzle out in a vacuum. The players can react to the action with small movements at the push of a button. But that’s it for the interaction possibilities.

The view of the screen, in front of which the heads of the other game characters bob, is reminiscent of a drive-in movie. The aura of going to a concert, the community feeling, the smell of sweat, the elbow of the person next to you in the side, wildly pogo dancing avatars? Missing. The performances are Corona-compliant: completely contact-free.