It’s no secret that both Deadmau5 and Rick and Morty show creator Justin Roiland both love VR, but we certainly weren’t expecting to see the VRChat logo front and center at Deadmau5’s New Years Eve concert.
Just as the clock was nearing 12:00 am, the music stopped at Deadmau5’s New Year’s concert and VRChat avatars of Rick and Morty appeared on the giant screens flanking either side of the EDM artists giant cube-shaped stage.
Arguing over how to defuse what ostensibly was a bomb about to blow up the entire party, Roiland, voicing the foul-mouthed mad scientist Rick, called everyone in the crowd “shitheads who are worshiping a giant mouse.”
“No wait. Nevermind. It’s just some other shithead wearing a mouse helmet,” Rick added.
A video recorded by YouTube user ‘Sir Melvar’ shows the countdown in full.
VRChat has posted strong growth in 2017, setting successive records for concurrent users; the most recent record was set just a few days ago at some 6,000 players, according to SteamSpy data. Earlier this year the company also raised a $4 million Series A investment led by HTC.
In addition to creating a Rick and Morty-themed game with Owlchemy Labs, the minds behind Job Simulator (2016), Roiland also heads his own VR development studio called Squanch Games that just released Accounting+ (2017) on PSVR. Both Roiland and Deadmau5 (aka Joel Zimmerman) are VRChat regulars.
Deadmau5 also headlined his own game, but it’s pretty horrible. Sorry, Joel.