Why was Drake & Travis Scott playing Fortnite so important in Fortnite’s success?
Or more broadly - how can artists provide cultural capital to video games?
I never intended to spend so many of my first few posts talking about Fortnite, but given their trajectory over the last few years and their latest music-based sub-game…I can’t avoid it. What Fortnite is doing today, and what they have done successfully before, are both important to understand Fortnite’s placement in pop culture and how music played a big part in Fortnite’s success - so let’s go back.
I’m going to split this into 3 parts for deeper context.
FAQ about Fortnite.
The role of artists & music in culture.
How the music industry can deliver cultural value to the games industry.
1. FAQ about Fortnite.
So, what is Fortnite? It’s a video game that’s been rather big over the last few years.
Just for the record - There are many reasons to Fortnite’s success, I just plan on diving into one. Instead of re-telling you about Fortnite, here are some reasons I’ve heard from people in conversation before about why they think Fortnite did so well in particular.
“It was one of the first free to play games”
It wasn’t. Let’s name a few prior to Fortnite being released:
Granblue Fantasy
Phantasy Star Online 2
Azur Lane
Rising Force (RF) Online
Luna Online
Pangya
Elsword
Warframe
TERA Online
Mobile Suit Gundam Online
Blade & Soul CN
DotA 2
Heroes of the Storm
SEAL Online
etc
“It’s because children play it with all their spare time”
Yes, children do play video games, that’s right. In fact I think alot of people of all ages play video games. (I also like the tone of bitterness in this counter-statement too - Responsibilities and what-not. I get it!)
Data is quite skewed for that age group due to data protection, but let’s look at some data we can find. In 2018, 17% of under-18 boys and 11% of under-18 girls played video games. Many of the best selling games of the past 15-odd years have been family friendly (not all of them though - I know many parents bought their children 18+ games, I won’t name or shame). All this info only evidences that it’s not just children.
“Gaming is getting bigger every year”
Yes it has, here’s a chart of the forecasting for 2018 to 2028 about the size of the industry. My question is, why did Fortnite get so disproportionately big?
“It’s because PUBG was already big”
So just for the avoidance of doubt, PUBG was a game that Fortnite was based off that cost the standard £50 price tag. Fortnite was considered the ‘poor man’s’ version given that it was free - but look at it now.
“It was a free to play online game”
Yes yes okay.
ANYWAY
I think that the music industry’s influence had a monumental impact on Fortnite. Let’s go back in time to the game-changing night of March 14th, 2018. When Drake and Travis Scott joined forces with Ninja, one of Twitch's biggest streamers:
it wasn't mere coincidence; it was a meticulously planned convergence of music and gaming’s most influencial people. This event wasn't just about gaming; it was a cultural event.
2. The role of artists & music in culture.
The music industry in 2018 was having a huge upswing since piracy had taken hold in the 00’s and saw years of decline. This was the first year the music industry almost hit double digits in digital growth and was truly recovering as valuation was only going up and up. With the whole industry actually rising, hitting $19 billion in sales. (which it has not touched since the late 00’s) there was more room to grow and artists were still as prominent as ever in popular culture. The music industry was very much coming out of the musical recession.
The music industry throughout all its time has always been one with culture. Artists act as the voice of the people. Musicians were the original influencers of today. After general exposure of the decision making processes with shows such as X-Factor, authenticity and brand became more powerful than ever in 2010’s. Artists are icons, on posters in bedrooms, with celebrity status being so ethereal that seeing someone come out on stage as the ACTUAL artist is a different experience (Big time gamers don’t have this reputation). The music industry never lost that crown, it had been able to choose what was right and relevant since its inception and it is intertwined with the very fabric of culture. The gaming industry has not had the same maturity or long term intertwining with culture.
People do play more video games today, but it still travels with similar tropes. How do I say this…Gamers have their stereotypes. In fear of sticking your neck out and possibly being seen as ‘uncool’ no one would talk about it as much as they would share their musical interests.
Parents think their kids spend ‘too much time on video games’. I don’t have any data on this, but if parents had aspirations for their children, would you think they would choose being an internationally performing artist, or a world famous video game streamer? This suggestion makes us think that culture today points at there being a big difference between the perception of these worlds.
3. How the music industry can deliver cultural value to the games industry.
Let’s go back to the event in question. Fortnite is already doing really well for a number of reasons; then Drake and Travis Scott jump on a twitch stream with the biggest Fortnite Twitch streamer Ninja - breaking twitch streaming records.
Why was this so important?
This is a great example as of why the music industry has the ‘golden key’. Drake and Travis Scott are some of the most sought after artists on the planet, especially at this time. They have fans from all over the world that understand they have undeniable influence because of their unquestionable success. One can assume that any artist that is selling out tours full of screaming fans proves that artist is in demand.
Then they both just decide to play Fortnite one night. Suddenly, non-gamers thought playing Fortnite can’t be…that bad?
This was the first instance in all my time being a gamer that it was openly talked about by people who would never have spoken about it before. It became an actual question ‘Do you play Fortnite?’ a named game in pop culture. Drake and Travis Scott’s fanbases had just been directly linked to Fortnite.
Epic Games (who own Fortnite) made a series of fantastic decisions to piggy back off of this. One of the most obvious takes here is that Fortnite was able to react quickly and start building a narrative based off potential partnerships, which it successfully did here with one of the biggest events in Fortnite’s history.
Suddenly, playing Fortnite gave you access to music fandom. It was relevant. It was a portal to popular culture. It was a gamer’s lens to seeing the rest of the world, and it was opened by Travis Scott and Drake. Travis Scott made an absolute killing out of the merch for this too.
Don’t get me wrong, I know Marshmellow played in Fortnite in a live show - That was a taste of how music can work in the gaming landscape too.
(By the way, I called that a couple of weeks before it was about to happen, I have a document in my Google Drive to prove it. So there.)
There have been many other partnerships before and after, but this one is particularly iconic. There couldn’t have been another artistic figure to do it like Drake or Travis Scott at the time.
Do I think that Fortnite could have been massive without Drake and Travis Scott?
For sure. But I think this drastically sped up the growth by giving Fortnite the ‘Golden Key’ - it gave everyone ‘permission’ to speak about Fortnite.
What can the music industry learn from this?
Artist’s have their own ‘universes’ they are trying to build. If they are currently a moment in culture, they have value to deliver to popular culture through gaming. If not, you can find a cool, smaller niche where their worlds meet according to their values and artist developmental goals. The artist’s audience is what is leveraged. Having an authentic interest in a game, or matching values with the visuals/values of a game, is a great way to open up a conversation about how they can both partner up.
What can the gaming industry learn from this?
Every game has a direct link to their users through the game, which is hugely valuable structure. Game developers can choose how to design a story/narrative that links in with popular culture if they think that is important - AAA games may not bother but some already have, like Cyberpunk 2077 or Death Stranding. If so, the biggest goal (in my opinion) is relevancy with pop culture. This is powerful, but also short lived, and may continue to shorten. If you can make development cheaper/faster (we can all dream), artist’s of all sizes can be valuable in the cultural narrative of a game. Development is currently monolith, so this space will likely be monopolised by well established artists owned by big companies with years of pre-planning. The exception is games like Fortnite and Roblox that allow third party developers to build on their platform.
What do I predict will happen next?
When development gets easier (with AI, games with easier developmental platforms, or third party developer access for more games) in the future, there will be smaller partnership teams within gaming companies looking to fight for popular cultural relevancy by including music industry icons, like ‘needledrops’ in games. This will be more and more important for smaller artists as popular culture becomes more granular. This has started with Fortnite and Roblox, and will continue to grow as our culture of relevancy and immediacy grows.
One key factor: Before a trend occurs, there is no data, just faith that a creative idea or partnership works. Authentic creative contributors from music and gaming can make some great collaborations - that’s what this Substack is all about! Leading with authenticity from the creative leads and artists is the way, just like this post’s example proved.
TLDR:
Drake and Travis Scott showed their huge fanbases Fortnite. This gave popular culture ‘permission’ to speak about Fortnite positively, which is the first of its kind. This is important for the future of a merging of music and gaming being cultural and impactful avenues when they can work together.