Massively Multiplayer Culture

As mass gatherings are cancelled, Live massively ‘multi-player’ cultural events and festivals are emerging. These involve millions of people coming together in one game.

In April, rapper Travis Scott held a virtual concert on Fortnite to celebrate the release of his new single. More than 12 million people attended through their in-game avatar to see two worlds clashing: gaming and culture (1).

Later in lockdown, to celebrate May Day, Helsinki hosted a virtual gathering and concert in which 600,000 Fins tuned in to watch the event unfold (2).

These type of events are expected to become even more common in the coming year, as according to the Welsh Chief Medical Officer and his team, all mass gatherings could be banned for more than a year, or at least until vaccination is routinely available (3).

If that is the case, we should expect these mass gatherings and cultural events to transform, to become digital, often gamified, stories of mass participation.

In addition to our ‘WFH’ culture, an ‘Experience From Home’ culture with a whole new set of social rituals will also emerge.

People will seek new layers of experience as different cultural disciplines - music, gaming, film, VR, AR, haptic storytelling - combine to change mass cultural participation.

This presents brands with new opportunities to amplify this experience and therefore strengthen their connection with consumers:

Be a Player: Participate and push boundaries. Add value, add experience and add your unique take and enjoyment of what is evolving.

Be Sensor: AR, VR and Haptic are accelerating sensory expectations. Brands that keep and set this new pace will be the ‘must experience’ players.

Be ‘Mass’: Cross borders and social groups to reflect the mass, larger than life, access online enables.

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