Game Music Digest | Sleepy Hallow's Fortnite Concert, EA Sports + Metallica
Plus: Roblox is allegedly in trouble over a viral Charlie XCX dance
Game Music Digest is a weekly wrap-up of the most interesting stories at the intersection of video games and music, brought to you by music and gaming newsletter, MusicEXP.
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Key Takeaways From Sleepy Hallow’s Virtual Concert Experience in Fortnite
In Brief: Rapper Sleepy Hallow launched ‘The Hallow Heist’ in Fortnite on April 18, a limited-time concert event created by Sony Immersive Music Studios in Fortnite Creative, which lets developers build and publish their own Fortnite experiences (basically creator-made/UGC experiences).
In the event, players embark on a “mind-bending journey through Sleepy’s creative subconscious” as the rapper’s digital avatar performs five songs, including his new single, Girls Like Girls’. You can catch a full playthrough of the 15-minute (ish) event on YouTube here.
EXP: Virtual concerts in Fortnite! Let’s start with some important context: we can’t really compare this to the mainstay virtual concert experiences in Fortnite such as Travis Scott and Marshmello.
Why? Because this Sleepy Hallow event takes place in Fortnite Creative and has no affiliation with Fortnite’s creator, Epic Games. This means The Hallow Heist doesn’t get the same PR or discoverability push as the big virtual concerts. Players had to search for this map like they’d search for any other map in Fortnite Creative, rather than having it put in front of them and positioned as a major Fortnite event.
Another key difference between this event and the bigger virtual concert experiences is that players couldn’t unlock anything special for attending. Epic Games incentivizes engagement with its virtual concerts by tying them to limited-time challenges and unlockables themed on the relevant artist, such as players unlocking a special Travis Scott emote for completing all the Astronomical Challenges in his virtual concert experience.
As such, the figures for The Hallow Heist are a lot lower than previous concerts, peaking at 16.3k concurrent players according to Fortnite.gg
2024 - Fortnite Remix: The Finale Concert ft. Snoop Dogg, Ice Spice, Eminem (14.3 million concurrent players)
2021 - Ariana Grande Concert (concurrent player figures never released)
2020 - Travis Scott Concert (12.3 million concurrent players)
2019 - Marshmello Concert (10.7 million concurrent players)
I used Chartmetric to see if I could find any interesting data correlating with this Fortnite activation, but 16.3k players doesn’t make much of an impact from a discoverability perspective for one of the hottest rappers in the world right now. That said, Sleepy Hallow will likely have found some new fans from the associated promo and affiliation (even if it’s unofficial) with Fortnite. As a Sony Music artist, The Hallow Heist did get a launch trailer pushed to 16.2 million subscribers on the PlayStation YouTube channel.
Sony Immersive Music Studios has spent the last few years investing its time and resources into Fortnite Creative as it aims to establish a presence on the platform, presumably as the go-to map creator for virtual concert and music experiences. To date, we’ve also seen virtual concerts and activations from Sony Music artists such as Myles Smith, Farruko and even Doja Cat.
It’s important to remember that Fortnite UGC is still in its very early days. Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), the toolkit that most developers are now using to build Fortnite experiences, was only released last year. Learning how to make the most of this toolkit will be a continuous work in progress for developers, and right now, Sony is the only major (at least that I’m aware of) with an in-house studio working on Fortnite Creative experiences.
Whether or not this investment will pay off remains to be seen. 16.3k concurrent players for Sleepy Hallow is a significant increase compared to previous collaborations (I remember the figures being low, but the limited-time nature of these events and ever-changing map codes make backtracking player history very difficult!).
But the biggest challenge for not just Sony, but Epic Games and other Fortnite Creative developers too, is cracking the discoverability challenge. Playercounts for Creative experiences are incredibly low compared to main Fortnite game modes like Battle Royale, Zero Build, and Reload. While Epic Games has slowly introduced new games into the Fortnite ecosystem, such as Fortnite Festival (music), Lego (survival/crafting) and Rocket Racing (racing), Fortnite will always be a shooter game first and foremost. Encouraging people to try out other game modes outside of the traditional ‘Fortnite formula’ will always be difficult.
EA Sports and Metallica Team Up for ‘Whom The Band Tolls’ Competition
In brief: Metallica has teamed up with EA Sports to challenge marching college bands to record a marching band version of a Metallica song that will feature in an upcoming version of EA’s college football game, EA Sports College Football. Bands have to be in the Collegiate Division 1 category to have their song appear in the game, but bands from outside of this category still have the opportunity of winning musical equipment for their school program.
According to EA, “Bands who enter will have access to a library of marching band charts for Metallica songs, provided by Hal Leonard.” The deadline to enter is November 1, 2025. Full details are here.
EXP: This is a clever way of getting some promo for EA Sports College Football while also highlighting EA’s music credibility and the importance of music to their sports games. It’s going to be fantastic promo for whoever wins the grand prize – EA Sports College Football 25 was the second-best-selling game in 2024, just behind Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
How The Minecraft Soundtrack Became Big Business For Its Composer
In brief: Billboard reporter Kristin Robinson spoke to Minecraft’s original composer Daniel Rosenfeld (C418) and his manager, Patrick McDermott, to learn more about the process of composing for one of the world’s most popular video games and how he managed to retain 100% ownership of his music.
EXP: As Rosenfeld mentions in the interview, game composers rarely retain ownership of their music, especially for larger games. The majority of music composition for games is done on a ‘work for hire’ basis, 91.2% of soundtracks in the AAA space, 83.6% of game soundtracks in the midcore space, and 44% of game soundtracks in the indie space, according to the 2023 Game Audio Industry Survey.
I wanted to share some key info and figures from the interview that highlight the global demand for video game music and the overwhelming success of Minecraft’s music in particular.
2.8 billion streams for C418’s original Minecraft (Minecraft Alpha) and companion (Minecraft Beta) soundtrack
200k units in vinyl sales for Minecraft Alpha
Rosenfeld has a lot of ‘streams per listener’ - 15 stream on average per listener, which his manager notes is much higher than other artists he works with.
Rosenfeld retaining ownership of his music means he can license it, and he managed to get two songs featured in the new Minecraft movie. This caused a significant increase in catalog streams, as reported on in last week’s newsletter.
That said, Rosenfeld hasn’t been invited back to write additional music for the series, which he attributes to a ‘messy divorce’ after retaining his rights.
Spotify accounts for 70% of Rosenfeld’s soundtrack income.
TikTok Creator Behind Viral Charli XCX ‘Apple Dance’ Sues Roblox
In brief: Helley Heyor, the actor and TikTok creator behind a viral dance move inspired by Charli XCX’s hit song ‘Apple’, is suing Roblox for allegedly selling the dance move without permission. The dance was turned into a Roblox emote as part of the Charlie XCX collaboration in Roblox’s fashion simulator game, Dress to Impress. According to Polygon, “Heyer filed the lawsuit in California on April 11, alleging that she and Roblox were in negotiations to officially license the dance in Roblox; however, Roblox released the emote before negotiations were finalized, and they never came to pass.” Heyor’s lawsuit claims the dance emote sold more than 60k units before it was removed in November 2024, generating an estimated $123k in sales.
EXP: Dance moves are playing an increasingly important role in video game monetisation as developers tie viral moments and iconic moves to emotes. But this isn’t the first time a video game developer has found itself in legal trouble over dance moves. As Polygon highlights, Fortnite creator Epic Games has been sued multiple times over dance emotes, but many of these lawsuits have been dismissed as dance copyrights are notoriously complicated.
With that in mind – and as I’m no legal expert – I reached out to business lawyer and video game expert, Richard Hoeg (make sure you check out his excellent YouTube channel here).
Hoeg explains that one of the reasons dance copyrights are so complicated is that this area of IP law (dance moves vs choreography) is all about nuance.
“The basics are that copyright does not protect the smallest components of creation. As an analogy, copyright protects the whole novel you wrote, but not the alphabetical letters you used (because that would end all other creative writing). Similarly, a hip twist or specific hand motion (letters) is not protected, nor are even a number of them strung together (words). Only long-form choreography (novels) can be protected.”
While Hoeg isn’t familiar with the specific moves used in the Apple dance, he says licensing such moves can often be seen as the ‘smart’ business play (even if game makers don’t technically ‘have to’) to disarm future legal risks – especially as no one knows what a judge or jury will do in a specific case.
An important note about this specific case is Heyor claims she did license the move to Epic Games (for Fortnite) and Netflix. I’ll be keeping an eye on how this plays out!
In other news…
The second season of The Last of Us TV series has landed, and the first episode features a lovely cameo from the game’s composer (who also serves as co-composer on the TV series). [Link]
As much as I was tempted to have another big story about VTubers and virtual artists, I’ll point you to this feature in Japan Times instead, which highlights why I’m so bullish about the music opportunities in both mediums. “I don't really like most streamers, but then when I discovered VTubers, I realized, 'Hey, you know, I'm actually into this,'" says Calliope concert attendee Luigi Galvan. "They look like anime characters. I like anime, so it was easy to get into the VTuber format that way." [Link]
A Metal Gear concert is getting its UK debut in London later this year, but tickets have already sold out! [Link]
This might be one of the best vinyl releases I’ve ever seen - Lost in Cult is releasing a 7LP vinyl boxset of music from celebrated video game developer and musician, Kenji Eno. If you want to learn more about Eno and why this release is a big deal, you can read this feature I wrote for NME a few years back or watch an incredible documentary about his life and the impact of his work here »» [Link]
Speaking of video game vinyl, Square Enix has put out a new picture disc for Final Fantasy IX’s 25th anniversary. [Link]
Unbeatable, the rhythm game where ‘music is illegal and you do crimes’, has a new PlayStation demo. [Link]
TimeExtension published an incredible interview with PaRappa The Rapper's Masaya Matsuura, who talks about his journey from pop star to game dev for one of PlayStation’s most iconic rhythm game franchises. [Link]
The Stardew Valley: Symphony of Seasons concert tour recently announced a load of new dates for the US this year [Link]
Math rock in video games! Yvette Young from Covet has joined the line-up of Fretless, the Wrath of Riffson. [Link]
The PlayStation Concert Tour is currently touring the UK and tickets are still available. I’ll be heading to the Manchester show and am expecting great things! Don’t miss this. [Link]
Listen to…
Zenless Zone Zero has teamed up with virtual singer ZAF to release a new image song promoting the game. [Link]
As well as making shit-hot video games like Enemy Zero and D2, Kenji Eno was also a remarkable musician, party animal and pioneer of sick video game remix albums. He commissioned a load of Ninja Tune artists to work on a remix album for D2, and also managed to convince Michael Nyman to write the score for his survival horror game Enemy Zero! [Link]
SNK has released a new music video promoting the upcoming release of Fatal Fury: City of Wolves, featuring a Salvatore Ganacci remix of popular music from the series. As a reminder, Ganacci is a playable character in the new game! [Link]