Modern Sky will also launch a virtual version of its famous Strawberry Music Festival featuring virtual artists this year.
Leading Chinese record label Modern Sky announced plans to accelerate its virtual businesses this year as the metaverse — a digital concept using various forms of virtual and augmented realities to mirror real-life social interactions — mania gains momentum in the country and elsewhere.
Shen Lihui, founder of the two-decade-old independent label, said last week that the company’s strategy for 2022 included developing virtual musicians, organizing virtual music festivals, and selling original digital works in the form of non-fungible tokens, or NFT. Modern Sky also released its first virtual musician, Miro — a combination of the words mirror and miracle — over a year after launching its first virtual artist label with musicians mostly adapted from real stars or famous online characters such as the one from the dress-up game “Shining Nikki.”
Virtual idols have been thriving in China over the years, with its market value reaching 3.46 billion yuan ($540 million) in 2020, up 70.3% from the previous year, according to the consultancy group iiMedia. The metaverse hype was expected to push its market value to nearly 107.49 billion yuan in 2021.
In recent months, other music and entertainment companies have been eyeing into metaverse, with Tencent Music announcing the launch of TMELAND, claiming it to be China’s first interactive virtual music festival, last month. Zhejiang Huace Film & TV also said it would set up a specialized metaverse business department dedicated to virtual images, NFTs, and digital studios.
Zhang Yi, CEO of iiMedia, told Sixth Tone that major Chinese music platforms are buoyed by the metaverse rush and are focused on developing virtual concerts, virtual stars, and their catalogs in order to better cash in the world of digital music. Continue to read the full article here
– This article originally appeared on Sixth Tone.
