Tencent Launched China’s First Virtual Music Concert TMELAND: Tech Giants’ Entry Into The Metaverse Industry

Abstract

1. On December 31, millions of Chinese citizens participated in TMEland, the Metaverse Music Carnival hosted by Tencent.
2. While Covid-19 is raging, metaverse concerts have made up for many music lovers missing out on live concerts.
3. At the end of 2020, the market share for online performances surged 40.7%.
4. The music industry currently enjoys the unique ability to apply NFT technology.
5. Decentralized NFTs can directly bridge the gap between musicians, listeners, and citizens, allowing musicians to give full attention to the value of their work once more.

When was the last time you presented yourself at an offline concert? The spread of Covid-19 has nearly made it impossible to hold an offline concert. Therefore, online entertainment has gradually developed to be favored by more people.

On New Year’s Eve on December 31, millions of Chinese netizens participated in a grand music carnival in the metaverse - TEMLand in the form of “digital avatars”. Organized by Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TEM), the music arm of Chinese tech giant Tencent, the event is China’s first Metaverse virtual music festival. Well-known DJs, musicians, and visual artists such as Anti-General, Luminn, DEXTERKING, Vicetone, and 072C Lab have attended the carnival. They have created an immersive audio-visual feast.

After entering TMEland through QQ Music and other platforms, users need to design an avatar for themselves first, and then they can use it to visit the large map of virtual landscapes including the conch disco, airship, hot air balloon square, music museum, statue square, music square, virtual live broadcast box, the game space, and the seaside observation tower, as well as participate in interactive projects in each landscape.

It is reported that XVERSE is the main technical supporter of TMEland. It provides technology and related cloud services based on the new device-cloud collaboration, allowing 1.1 million users from all over China to enjoy a smooth and stable 3D experience without downloading an APP or a web client. By virtue of Metaverse-related technologies, users can enjoy an excellent immersive experience as well as interact with others through a variety of novel modes. For example, they can do various types of dances in the conch disco and enjoy the performances brought by many famous DJs; they can also use telescopes on the seaside observation tower to view the entire map. In the future, Tencent Music will also launch functions that allow users to create exclusive digital islands and landscape layouts. TEMland will be built into a more mature long-term metaverse product.


The festival also includes TEMlive inviting well-known singers such as Mayday and Jay Chou. In the Talking before 24:00 o’clock, Ashin, the leading singer of Mayday, described the changes in the music industry: “Remember how we got here? It was a long journey of time, from tape to CD, to MP3, to Streaming music; from the Millennium Crisis to the Mayan Doomsday, to the coming of the Metaverse...” While Covid-19 is raging, metaverse concerts have made up for many music lovers missing out on live concerts.

Metaverse empowers the music industry

The success of TEMland shows Tencent’s technical capabilities in the metaverse field. The Metaverse, not only for Tencent, but also for traditional technology giants such as Apple and Microsoft, is a major area for the social game field to enter, and it is also the next blue ocean for technology. Roblox rose to 54.4% on its first day of listing in March 2021, becoming the “first stock in the metaverse”, and Facebook set its foot in the Metaverse by rebranding its name to Meta at the end of the year 2021. These major events indicate that the Metaverse is growing more popular.

Specifically, the metaverse empowers the music industry with virtual performances, NFTs, and virtual idols, making it a virtual music sector. Compared to the traditional online music entertainment, although Metaverse concerts also offer a sense of participation similar to real concerts, users are no longer just listeners. Instead, they can interact with musicians and other users in the virtual world.

According to data from British music website Bandsintown, the market share for online performances has surged 40.7% at the end of 2020. The most successful example can be the “Astronomical” virtual concert jointly organized by “Fortnite” and Travis Scott. In this concert, Scott appeared as a giant, and the number of online players at the same time in the game reached 12.3 million, setting a new online high. This certainly displays the unique appeal of the Metaverse Concert.


In terms of NFT, the music industry currently enjoys the unique ability to apply NFT technology. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the total global recorded music market revenue reached $21.6 billion in 2020. However, there is a kind of separation between the popularity of the song and the income of the musician in this huge and mature market. As the Internet is growing more centered, the vast majority of profits from music sales are obtained by Internet giants responsible for distributing traffic and music companies that hold copyrights, while the music creators can gain very little. However, decentralized NFTs can directly bridge the gap between musicians, listeners, and citizens, allowing musicians to give full attention to the value of their work once more.

Currently, dozens of different NFT music platforms are available on the market, such as Audius, OneOf, Royal, Rocki, etc. These platforms allow musicians to mint and distribute music NFTs by themselves. Fans can also trade these NFTs in the secondary market. For example, in March 2021, the well-known musician 3LAU released the world’s first NFT album on Royal and gained over $11.68 million in one day.

Conclusion

It is impossible to complete the construction of the Metaverse in just one day. Metaverse technology is surely a trend in technology, especially in the music field. It is foreseeable that music blockchain applications will usher in explosive growth soon. With their effort, many companies and practitioners will certainly one day turn the metaverse that is truly immersive but beyond the real world into reality.

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Author: Ashley. H, Gate.io Researcher
*This article represents only the views of the researcher and does not constitute any investment advice.
*Gate.io reserves all rights to this article. Reposting of the article will be permitted provided Gate.io is referenced. In all other cases, legal action will be taken due to copyright infringement.

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