The live concert by Marshmello in Fortnite lasted only 10 minutes, but 10 million people are said to have watched it. And many are thrilled.
Where does the number come from? The “10 million viewers” come from Geoff Keighley (via Twitter), a well-known gaming journalist. The 10 million are said to have watched “in Fortnite” alone. In addition, there are those who might have watched it elsewhere online.
Keighley claims to have obtained the numbers from sources.
That is an enormous number, albeit unofficial. At least so far. The last huge number for Fortnite was 8.3 million people who watched when the cube exploded at an event.
Here’s how the Marshmello event took place in Fortnite: At around 7:30 PM on Saturday, February 2nd, a new mode appeared in Fortnite, called “Showtime.”
This was a 30vs30 mode, where players fought against each other until one team reached 200 kills. In this mode, the playing field shrank around “Pleasant Park,” where Marshmello would perform his concert.
A countdown above the concert stage in Pleasant Park counted down.
All other modes in Fortnite were disabled, except for Showtime and the Creative mode.
Even before 8 PM, announcements from Marshmello could be heard across Fortnite, building anticipation for the concert.
At 8:00 PM the actual 10-minute concert took place in Pleasant Park. During that time there was a ceasefire – no one could attack each other.
You can watch the concert in full length here:
After the concert ended, the “Showtime” match continued where it had left off: Players could eliminate each other. The next day, there was an encore, which in German terms was Sunday morning at 8:00 AM.
This is how Epic connected the concert with Fortnite
This is how the run-up to the event went: Dataminers had already discovered clues about the event early on.
On Thursday evening, the first challenges for the event went live. Players could ultimately solve three Showtime challenges:
- they had to find an poster for the Showtime concert
- visit the concert stage in Pleasant Park
- and spread “Mello mood” at three locations in Fortnite,
As a reward, there were emotes and a pickaxe in the Marshmello style.
Additionally, dance emotes, a Marshmello skin, and other festive items were sold in the Fortnite Cash Shop.
What does Marshmello have to do with Fortnite? Marshmello is one of the stars Epic sought to collaborate with in the summer of 2018 to make Fortnite even more popular and reach new audiences among young people.
Marshmello won the “Pro-Am Tournament” of Fortnite together with Ninja in June 2018. There, Fortnite professionals played alongside actors, musicians, athletes, and other celebrities. Many of the selected “celebrities” were popular among young audiences in the US.
DJ and producer Marshmello (born in 1992) is also very popular with the young audience of Fortnite.
Marshmello says: It was all live
What’s special about this: Marshmello is said to have performed the concert live. He stated this in a stream of Fortnite player CouRageJD.
At first, Epic had concerns about whether they could manage everything live – also due to bandwidth issues. But Epic took the time and ultimately overcame all difficulties.
The boundaries between reality and the game seem to blur during the event. Marshmello treated the viewers in “Pleasant Park” as if they were the audience of a real concert. He addressed them directly and interacted with them. The event was also noted on his tour schedule.
This is how the event is received: There is much praise for the event:
- At Forbes, it is said that Marshmello received his own “Super Bowl Halftime” show here. The event was outstanding, for Fortnite and for Marshmello. Such a thing had not been seen, since Second Life. Back in June 2003, “Duran Duran” gave a concert in the game.
- At Kotaku, the author stated he was both excited and shocked at how much he enjoyed it.
- Many of our readers also praised the concert highly. So it was stated at “Fortnite MeinMMO” on Facebook that the event was really well done, much better than the cube explosion, and the best event so far.
- Players on reddit also express their enthusiasm. Epic’s developers are considered geniuses. The overall mood is downright euphoric after the event.
Fortnite goes where no game has gone before
This is how we liked it: I, Schuhmann from MeinMMO, watched it live as well. Even though Marshmello does not make my favorite music, I found the concert bizarre, but quite impressive: It was fascinating to see huge projections of plush figures and 60 people dancing in front of them.
When I realized that not only my match with 60 people was watching, but probably millions of people worldwide, I found the thought really interesting to be part of something so big.
While looking at the people in the Marshmello skin, I also thought about what this means for Epic’s revenue: Because such a skin costs about €15 in the Cash Shop. Despite all the euphoria, there is of course a big commercial component – as with everything in Fortnite.
But I have to tip my hat once again to Epic for paving new paths with Fortnite and always coming up with something new. I could never have imagined something like the Thanos event – even this with Marshmello is something new and exciting to see where games are heading.
While many games we follow on MeinMMO tend to follow clear patterns, you never know what Epic will do next. Hopefully, we will see this in the upcoming events in Fortnite: I want such a giant boss fight.
