Multi-User Dungeon

Silent In-game Concerts: Text-Based Musical Performances in MUDs

The document argues that in-game concerts, often perceived as a recent phenomenon exemplified by events like Travis Scott's Fortnite concert, have a much longer history rooted in Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs).

• The paper argues that in-game concerts, such as Travis Scott's 2020 Fortnite performance, descend from spontaneous musical self-expression in text-based multi-user dungeons (MUDs) rather than originating with recent spectacles.
• Its evidence base is qualitative: semi-structured Discord interviews with a former MUD player and a BatMUD developer, email correspondence with MUD1 co-creator Richard Bartle, and BatMUD gameplay records from 2001, gathered in 2023–2024.
• Players conveyed musical performance through written descriptions of emotional qualities, such as a "plaintive chord," rather than technically specified notes or audio, with the author treating described sound as a form of sound.