One of the streaming era’s biggest stars will be performing virtually in Fortnite from 5 October. Ed Sheeran will make his debut in the Epic Games title courtesy of a partnership with iHeartMedia.
The company says that this is “the first third-party music experience” built using Epic’s Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) tools, and it will live within iHeartMedia’s iHeartLand island, which launched in August 2022.
‘A Special Ed Sheeran Immersive Experience’ (catchy title, eh?) goes live on 5 October, but will only be available for a few days, until 9 October.
The experience will include music, but rather than the original recordings, they’ll be live performances recorded by Sheeran for iHeartRadio. The environments are based on the featured songs, with Easter eggs sprinkled for fans to find.
A brand is involved too: State Farm, which was the ‘charter naming rights partner’ for iHeartLand from launch.
We reported on the launch of UEFN in March this year, including the economy around it that will distribute 40% of Fortnite’s revenues to creators of islands/maps based on their popularity and engagement.
Epic Games later said that 43 creators were on course to generate more than $1m of annual payouts from this economy, and 106 more than $300k. Perhaps Ed Sheeran will help iHeartMedia break into one of those categories…
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…