CARY – Add Marshmello to a growing number of celebrities, sports stars and entertainers that are working with Epic Games and its globally popular “Fortnite” to drive viewership and participation via streaming to record numbers.

Marshmello vita his Twitter account

The so-called virtual concert Saturday night involving Marshmello – yes, he wears a marshmallow helmt – including thousands of Fortnite players/characters and rollicking music it what’s touted as a “virtual concert.”

“We made history today! The first ever live virtual concert inside of @fortnite with millions of people in attendance,” Marshmello tweeted.

“So insane, thank you epic games and everyone who made this possible!”

How about 10 million?

“Sources are telling me there were more than ’10 million concurrent players’ watching the @marshmellomusic concert in @FortniteGame today – on top of the millions watching online,” tweeted Geoff Keighley of GameAwards.com.

“What a moment for gaming!”

Writing at Forbes.com, Paul Tassi pointed out:

“This is significant because the last time we even knew what Fortnite’s concurrent player record was, it was in November when Epic revealed there were 200 million total Fortnite players and 8.3 million was the concurrent peak. This 10 million figure would be a new record above and beyond that, though I don’t think this has been confirmed as a new peak …”

Cary-based Epic has turned the Fortnite online battleground game into a financial hit, pushing the value of the company into the billions of dollars according to financial news firm Bloomberg estimates, and global sensation over the past two years. So much so that, as Epic’s cofounder and CEO Tim Sweeney has said, the cross-platform game could be the predictor of entertainment’s future.

More people are starting to concur.

“It truly felt like a glimpse into the future of interactive entertainment,” says Nick Statt at The Verge, “where the worlds of gaming, music, and celebrity combined to create a virtual experience we’ve never quite seen before.”

So declared Statt after the weekend performance by Marshmello whose 10-minute routine in the Fortnite dance may very well have set a record of some 10 million in simultaneous views.

Fortnite hasn’t become such a hit without challenges, either. Epic faces suits over whether Fortnite has copied dancers’ moves, and the company is embroiled in other suits over cheating.

But Saturday’s “dance” is generating plenty of good headlines for the game and company all over the web.

Super Bowl? What Super Bowl.

Here’s the set: