Secret Characters: Virgil Abloh & Video Games
An unsung chronology.
Secret Characters is a series that looks at big cultural behemoths and their video game affiliations.
Virgil is a man who has been profiled in almost every way imaginable - but his video game contributions have flown under the radar for many. During his time at LV and Off-White, Virgil tapped into a number of different corners of the gaming community - leveraging everything from big titles to cult classics. Below is a short timeline on his work:
LV Endless Runner - 2019
Humble beginnings in 2019 brought us LV Endless Runner - a simple 16-bit platform game with the backdrop resembling New York City’s metropolis. Whilst this didn’t garner a great deal of attention, it’s an important milestone. In 2019, gaming itself was still a pretty foreign idea in the luxury world. As rudimentary as LV Endless Runner may have been - it walked so Virgil’s next instalments could indeed run.
League Of Legends x Louis Vuitton - 2019
A matter of months later, Virgil delivered his first headline grabber - The League of Legends x Louis Vuitton hook up. What is now seen as a standard gaming collaboration was still rather new at the time of release. Two seemingly disparate worlds (luxury and esports) had converged. While the collection included a physical range of merch and a luggage trunk designed for the LoL final, the digital skins would be the most affordable product LV had ever released. It sent a message to the rest of the industry - for luxury to evolve for the next generation, price needed to be deprioritised as the yardstick for value.
OFFKAT - 2021
OFFKAT for Off-White dropped and quickly became a favourite instalment among many devout Virgil fans. Running around the city tagging walls and buildings with legendary graffiti artist Katsu Bot felt like the perfect mix between Jet Set Radio and Marc Ecko’s Getting Up - two video games that were cult-like games during Virgil’s early 20s. This perhaps spoke closest to the identity Virgil had created over his celebrated career - a man who saw the art of the streets and brought it to the biggest audience possible through mainstream mediums like video games.
Louis The Game - 2021
As NFTs took flight, Virgil created Louis The Game - a Little Big Planet-like homage to the 200 year history of Louis Vuitton. Unlike his first projects, Louis The Game was actually quite a deep world with players needing to explore and collect 200 candles to commemorate the eponymous Louis Vuitton’s birthday. Collectibles from the game could be stored as unique NFTs. Since its initial release, the game has had new updates and currently the Vivienne NFTs (the main character in Louis The Game) go for 200 ETH on OpenSea.
Virgil was known for his testing and “sampling” approach to luxury, providing a glimpse into the future with every project he pursued. Since Virgil’s passing, Louis Vuitton has taken his test approach in gaming and expanded it to their entire parent company with a partnership between LVMH and Epic Games. The codes of gaming will be integrated more closely into the worlds of LVMH with 3D creation tools to offer experiences like virtual fitting rooms and fashions shows, 360 product carousels, augmented reality, creation of digital twins and more.
As LVMH moves into its next (epic) stage with gaming, it’s important to credit the man who was instrumental in guiding them there.