South Korean pop titans Blackpink are coming to Roblox. The band made historical past this 12 months as the primary Okay-pop group to headline Coachella, and now the four-piece is heading to the metaverse by way of a devoted Roblox fan hub.
The expertise will likely be a everlasting addition to the digital on-line recreation, giving followers (aka Blinks) an interactive area to rejoice Blackpink’s music and are available collectively to recreate their famed choreography.
In Blackpink: The Palace, followers will even have the ability to take pictures with the avatars of Jennie, Lisa, Jisoo, and Rosé, and buy a sequence of customized outfits and emotes for their very own avatars. Customers will even find a way improve their in-experience gadgets by smashing crystals utilizing a hammer-like “lightstick” just like the light-up trinkets that followers wield at concert events.
A screenshot from Blackpink’s Roblox expertise. Picture: Blackpink
Blackpink: The Palace will likely be up to date all year long forward with a sequence of challenges that can reward gamers with Robux, Roblox’s in-game forex.
The Blackpink-themed Roblox world is because of launch August 25, and has been developed by British studio Karta. Any fan who visits the sport world inside the first 24 hours of launch will obtain a novel badge for his or her Roblox profile.
“We look ahead to welcoming followers from all around the world to a stupendous digital palace the place they’ll celebration, join, and expertise all the pieces Blackpink past the constraints of time and area,” stated Hyojung Lee, Head of IPX Division at YG Plus, in a press release.
Roblox began 2023 by internet hosting an in-game live performance from Okay-pop boy band NCT 127. Final 12 months, fellow Okay-pop stars Stray Youngsters and Sunmi helped launch Spotify’s official Roblox Island with meet and greet occasions, music manufacturing instruments, and digital merch.
Blackpink, in the meantime, gained the first-ever “Finest Metaverse Efficiency” award on the 2022 MTV VMAs for his or her collaboration with battle royale shooter PUBG Cell. The group has additionally collaborated with South Korean metaverse platform Zepeto, which is increasing into the NFT world with its ZTX platform on Ethereum scaling community Arbitrum.
Okay-pop has rapidly turn into a daily fixture in metaverse worlds after a number of high-profile international digital concert events had been broadcast over the pandemic, together with from breakout teams like BTS and Twice. This allowed them to achieve a worldwide on-line viewers, with the previous additionally performing in video games like Minecraft and Fortnite.
A screenshot from Blackpink’s Roblox expertise. Picture: Blackpink
It’s a transfer that’s backed by the South Korean authorities, which reportedly invested $170 million in metaverse developments in 2022.
The pivot to the metaverse isn’t that a lot of a leap for a lot of Okay-pop followers. Every member of the four-piece group Aespa, for instance, has a digital counterpart that’s utilized in music movies and for metaverse performances.
Earlier this 12 months, The New York Occasions reported that Korean firm Kakao Leisure teamed with cell gaming big Netmarble to create a digital Okay-pop band referred to as Mave, able to interacting with bodily world followers by AI applied sciences. Mave launched their first observe in March, with the video for “Pandora” racking up practically 4 million views on YouTube.
