The worlds of music and gaming have become more and more intertwined over the last few years. Dance labels have been the pioneers for licensing the brand and music of their rosters with recent examples including games like Grand Theft Auto, Fortnite, Rocket League and many more further expanding the reach of their artists’ music.
No artist has benefited from this more than the internet based dance producer Tokyo Machine who has become one of the leaders at the cross-section of video game and music culture. The last year has seen the artist explode both digitally and IRL. From playing sold out headline shows in cities like LA to playing festivals including Insomniac’s Beyond Wonderland to iconic European bass festival Rampage and even going on tour with Modestep in the US.
Most recently, the innovative artist partnered with Rec Room and his own label, CHOMPO, for unique fully playable in-game collaboration.
Rec Room is one the largest VR games in the world with approximately 70 million downloads and coincidentally was the first VR game Tokyo Machine ever played. (Rec Room has since expanded to support non-VR services like Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, and Android) Tokyo Machine headlined the first ever official Rec Rocks music festival inside of Rec Room where he debuted a set of 100% unreleased songs from his label.
Rec Room has taken things even further by building a CHOMPO x Tokyo Machine pop-up “vinyl” shop in the game’s main hub, the Rec Center. Users can then visit the pop-up shop to purchase, download, and unlock music from CHOMPO. (For Rec Room users, here’s a link to play the mini-game CHOMPOS ADVENTURE)
You’re able to get up to 20 songs available in the game as “Inventions” from Tokyo Machine and his Chompo label in the game, including 6 of them that are completely free and exclusive for the time being to the game.
You can grab 4 of these just by logging in and visiting the pop-up shop and 2 of them are available by following some hidden clues. Additional content including in-game Tokyo Machine merchandise by playing the mini-game “Chompo’s Adventure” which can be accessed from the pop-up shop.
Players are able to take these song “inventions” and can use them when creating their own worlds within Rec Room. (Also known as UGC / User Generated Content)
We hope to see more virtual pop-up shops to be able to interact with some of our favorite artists we can’t see in person.