Things are about to get serious following the recent US concert tragedy, with Epic themselves taking action.
Travis Scott is a prominent character in Fortnite. The Astronomical event which was held digitally in Fortnite in April last year was a massive success. During that time, several skins of the rapper were added to the Fortnite item shop. The concert was bonkers, to say the least. Everyone had a blast and altogether it was a fun time. It’s safe to say that Travis did a lot for Fortnite when it comes to getting people interested in playing the game.
With millions of fans worldwide, Epic easily pulled in a lot of newcomers to their already successful battle royale. However, when tragedy struck the rapper’s live concert event just a few days ago, Epic Games decided to pull the plug altogether to sever their ties.
Out of the Blue Moment
A Fortnite emote that features music by Travis Scott has seemingly been removed from the Fortnite item shop. Not only that, but Epic also temporarily disabled the “Daily” section of the shop just hours after it was updated with an “Out West” emote which is the one that was taken off. The move comes after the tragic events that occurred at Houston’s Astroworld concert on November 5. It was reported that at least eight people died, with 25 hospitalized and 300 injured during Scott’s performance.
Now, what does this have to do with the removal of the “Out West” emote, you ask? Well, besides the fact that the whole event was organized by Scott himself, the media reported that the entrance to the concert site had been breached by scores of people without tickets. This resulted in the overcrowding of the venue at dangerous levels. Despite this, Travis Scott continued his concert even after seeing a lot of people in distress. The result? The whole event ended prematurely when eight people died after being crushed by the overcrowded and unsafe event.
Travis Scott Faces the Law
Travis didn’t just continue his concert despite people being crushed to death, he even encouraged the concert goers to go into “sicko mode” and breach the security that was doing their darndest trying to control the chaos. After the fiasco, Scott was heavily criticized for not having enough safety protocols. With the rest of the festival canceled, the musician now faces the law in the form of multiple lawsuits, with one claiming that he “incited mayhem”. The icing on the cake? Drake’s also been sued since he was part of Scott’s headline set who also contributed to the cause of surge towards the stage.
Travis Scott’s Ties With Fortnite
Travis Scott has been tied to Fortnite ever since April 2020. He performed a virtual in-game concert which was called Astronomical and attracted over a whopping 27 million attendees. About 12.3 million people were watching concurrently at one point, which is a staggering number when thinking about just how many were online at a single place and time. In-game concerts aren’t new these days, especially when talking about Fortnite. These kinds of concerts are key to Fortnite’s efforts to expand beyond its usual shooting game core, and with Travis Scott being such a big name in the music industry, it brought a lot of non-gamers to the Fortnite scene.
The Origin Story of the Out West Emote
The emote in question plays a clip of the Out West song by Travis Scott alongside a dance that’s based on a viral TikTok sensation that’s set to the same song. TikTok has a lot of similar content like that these days, and with Epic having controversial history for creating Fortnite emotes out of dances made by outside artists without at least providing credit or compensation, it’s not surprising to see them stealing from other creators.
The emote made its debut in August 2020 and used to be regularly available for 500 V-Bucks at least once a month ever since.
Since Epic disabled the emote from the Fortnite Item Shop now, there’s currently no way to purchase it. Players who have previously purchased the accessory can still use it in the game though.
Final Thoughts
Epic has yet to comment anything regarding the removal of the “Out West” emote in the Fortnite item shop. While they haven’t explained their reasons for doing so, the cause seems clear if you read the room. Most of the Fortnite fans have largely welcomed the removal of Scott’s emote from the shop as well. It’s not entirely sure whether this is temporary or not, but one thing’s for sure: the events that happened at the Astroworld concert were a tragedy.
What do you think of the things that transpired in the concert and the removal of the emote? Let us know down below!
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