Jenova Chen discusses how 1.6 million people watched a concert in Sky: Children of the Light
Alma Bax 
Sky: Children of the Light is a beautiful and delightful game produced by thatgamecompany, the developer behind the critically acclaimed Journey. The game was famously live streamed on Twitch, where more than 1.6 million people watched the virtual concert of the game’s music.
Jenova Chen, the creator of the game, recently gave an interview regarding the game’s success. Let’s take a look at what he had to say.
Background of Jenova Chen
Jenova Chen is a game design genius and the co-founder at the award-winning independent video game developer thatgamecompany. He has directed multiple games, including Journey, Flow, Flower, and Sky: Children of the Light. He graduated from UCLA in 2005 with a Master’s in Interactive Media and has had several projects nominated for creative awards. He is also an avid artist who produces digital art focused on emotional stories.
Chen has been praised for his innovative design approach to creating emotional games devoid of traditional gameplay mechanics. He also pioneered “asynchrony”, which makes online multiplayer games more social by removing competition from their design structure. As a result, many gaming experts consider Chen to influence some of the best modern video games released in recent years.
On August 21st 2020, 1.6 million people gathered virtually to watch boygenius—an indie trio featuring singers Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus— perform their first livestream concert as part of Sky: Children Of The Light. This event was notable for being hosted entirely within Sky: Children of The Light, which Chen created. It stands as one of the largest virtual audiences ever convened for a single event in gaming history and proved that innovative game designers can use online gaming worlds beyond mere recreation or entertainment purposes; they can use it as a powerful tool to bring people together just as much as real-life music festivals can do so traditionally offline.
Overview of Sky: Children of the Light
Sky: Children of the Light is an award-winning game from thatgamecompany’s co-founder, Jenova Chen. Sky has been praised for its beautiful art and sound design, atmospheric environments, and intuitive gameplay. Players take on roles of benevolent spirits tasked with reuniting lost souls from the heavens to restore light to the world. It’s a game about adventure, exploration, collaboration and giving.
The game was released in July 2019 for iOS devices, with PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions following in April 2020. It quickly gained millions of players worldwide. In April 2020, thatgamecompany hosted an in-game concert titled Beyond Music Experience (BME) featuring 19 real-life artists including GOLAN and Big Wild. Over 1.6 million people joined this digital performance as audiences or performers within two hours!
Sky: Children of the Light is so much more than just a captivating adventure or eye-catching visuals – it is a space to digitally and emotionally connect with people. With breathtaking adventures around every corner, simple yet heartwarming minigames to become lost in, draggable characters that mimic your friends emotes online. There was no doubt why this game became an instant hit for mobile gamers far and wide!
How 1.6M people watched a concert in Sky: Children of the Light | Jenova Chen interview
On April 18th, 2020, Jenova Chen, the Creative Director of ThatGameCompany, interacted with the team at Gamasutra and shared an interview about the 1.6 million viewers concert in Sky: Children of the Light. The concert allowed millions of players to connect while they listened to a musical performance.
Let’s dive deeper into how the concert was organised and impacted the game.
What inspired the idea of the concert
The idea of the 1.6 million viewers concert came from the desire to recognize and honour Sky: Children of the Light’s many global fans and to thank them for their continued support. Developed by thatgamecompany and published independently, Sky has drawn millions of players worldwide who have all found solace in this calming and immersive game experience, which features songbird companions that guide players on their journey through the stars.
As a celebration of their dedicated player base, this concert was created to be unlike any other gaming event. Instead of being a live-streamed event with pre-recorded segments, this concert was performed and broadcasted in real time for livestream spectators worldwide. Players in-game enjoyed every performance as it happened through a virtual stage accessible from within the game itself. This allowed viewers at home or strumming away on their phones to feel like they were part of something truly special with fellow fans worldwide, while contributing beautiful music which poured out into everyone’s homes worldwide—including many who had never heard Sky: Children of the Light before!
How the concert was organised
On July 25th, 2020 more than 1.6 million people tuned in to watch a live, virtual concert in the mobile adventure game Sky: Children of the Light. This unprecedented turnout resulted from an incredibly complex undertaking by developers Thatgamecompany and live streaming partner Twitch.
The collaboration between two platforms required integrating technological and artistic elements over six months, from securing musical talent to ensuring technical stability during the livestream.
Months before the event, members of Thatgamecomapany worked closely with composer Stephen Coxon and Ubisoft Reflections’ audio and engineering teams on sound mixing for five original tracks that would make up the hour-long concert, utilising 3D soundscapes for optimal audio quality for solo audiences as well as thousands together.
On event day all 16 global servers that power Sky needed to be stable during peak hours due to consecutive fireside sequences that caused mass synchronisation around dusk. Furthermore initial technical issues such as loading screens malfunctioned due to unprecedented login frequency prompted impromptu user guides presented by Twitch streamers as an emergency fix leading up to the concert itself.
Overall this monumental concert was a success thanks to months of planning and desperate problem solving across multiple platformsThatgamecompany are currently preparing another virtual gathering in game coinciding with their anniversary celebration later this month.
Challenges faced in organising the concert
Organising any large-scale event, especially one that streams live in real time, is daunting. The 1.6 Million Viewers Concert was no exception, and significant challenges were to be sorted through.
The creators had to figure out how to handle the technical aspects of hosting something this massive. For example, the stream had to be designed to allow a smooth viewing experience for 1.6 million viewers at once, and encoding questions such as resolution had to be decided ahead of time. Tests were run throughout the weeks leading up to the event, so technical issues could be addressed before show day arrived.
To ensure there wouldn’t be any issues with connectivity or streaming quality during the show, they also had to hire additional tech support staff to handle viewers’ requests as quickly as possible. This was even more important since this was a live stream event with no room for mistakes!
Furthermore, with such an audience size comes the potential for trolls and other opportunistic people who wanted to take advantage of the situation. To keep everything running smoothly, volunteers were called upon days beforehand to help report any potential problems or suspicious behaviour seen during the concert itself. Though it was challenging logistically speaking, all their hard work paid off as everyone attending could enjoy a beautiful virtual concert!
Jenova Chen’s Thoughts on the Concert
Jenova Chen, the creator of the award-winning game Sky: Children of the Light, recently expressed his thoughts on a virtual concert that drew in 1.6 million viewers. The number of attendees exceeded the expectations of the developers and was an incredible display of the game’s popularity.
In a recent interview, Jenova Chen discussed the concert’s impact on the gaming community.
Jenova’s reaction to the success of the concert
Jenova Chen, the co-founder and creative director of Thatgamecompany, shared his surprise and delight at the success of 1.6 million people coming together in Sky: Children of the Light for a concert to celebrate Chinese New Year.
“It was an incredible experience for many people to come together for this special event. I never expected 1.6 million players! It was inspiring and humbling,” said Jenova Chen.
The public event kicked off on February 4, 2020 with a countdown that spread all over the world with 1.6 million players gathered in-game together to take part in a 10-minute light symphony show like no other with music composer Vincent Wang creating customised pieces of music specifically for this virtual concert accompanied by dozens of animations created by game artist Kevin Jiang as they lit up hundreds of stars surrounding the symphony stage mannered by wingsuit performers soaring through the night sky.
“To unify millions of players from around the world regardless of their background or language through this beautiful musical experience is something I will remember forever,” said Chen adding that he hopes to pay homage to even more cultures through future concerts in Sky: Children of The Light.
How the concert impacted the game’s community
Jenova Chen, the creator of the popular mobile game Sky: Children of the Light, recently spoke about his response to a monumental event in the game’s community – a concert held on December 31, 2019 that over 1.6 million participants watched.
When asked how it felt to see such an unprecedented level of concurrent viewers, Chen noted that he had no prior expectation of how many people would tune in and admits to being “completely overwhelmed.” The many performers and the technical challenges they overcame show how connected the game has made its players.
Chen felt that this shared experience highlighted what makes Sky: Children of the Light so special – its ability to bring people together for an amazing shared experience. He was amazed at how everyone came together to make such a momentous celebration come alive and enjoyed witnessing moments between friends as they shared their New Year celebrations. For him, this event recalled how music can bring joy through its power to unite people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to meet and share experiences.
The power behind this momentous celebration also showed Chen just how powerful a communal bond can be – no matter where one is from or who their friends are; there is something innately special when a like-minded group comes together through their mutual love for something like music and games. This powerful moment has made him all the more dedicated to providing unique experiences that everyone can enjoy regardless of location or language barriers.
Jenova’s takeaways from the experience
Jenova Chen, co-founder of thatgamecompany, describes his experience with the success of the 1.6 million people who watched a concert in their game Sky: Children of the Light. He says it results from building strong relationships with players by providing them with real life utility and fostering their creativity.
He further explains that Sky has been designed to create meaningful moments through interdependence between players. He highlights how players trust and rely on each other to pursue various goals. The concert was just one example of how the game brought out the best in its community by providing creative tools for self expression and friendship building, even though many have never met each other.
Jenova emphasises that his team aspires to inspire people worldwide to extend compassion, trust and care beyond virtual boundaries through games like Sky: Children of the Light. His team’s vision is that interactive entertainment can have profound positive effects on people’s lives through deepening connections and forming connections between individuals who until now only talked online or never met at all. He can understand why it was such a success as he grew a deep attachment towards many he has met through Sky during its development journey.
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