The Harris/Walz marketing campaign has its personal Fortnite map

We’re within the remaining stretch of the 2024 presidential election and each side are pulling out all of the stops to get these all-important undecided voters. The Harris/Walz marketing campaign is exploring an unconventional choice: a map in Epic Video games’ mega on-line multiplayer hit Fortnite.

The “Freedom Town, USA” map obtainable at 7331-5536-6547 is a little bit completely different from the same old Fortnite matches. Forbes senior contributor Paul Tassi performed the brand new map and reported that there aren’t any weapons in Freedom City (in all probability for apparent causes). As an alternative, the sport focuses on racing with automobiles and parkour fashion. The map additionally has some marketing campaign indicators and decorations for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz’s presidential run.

Video video games have grow to be a cornerstone of the Harris/Walz marketing campaign. Harris’ camp has its own Twitch page that’s been broadcasting video games like World of Warcraft and the newest Madden title as a technique to spark discussions with the voting public. The Fortnite map, nonetheless, doesn’t appear like it’s doing an important job of getting the message out to gamers. As of this story’s publishing, the map solely has lower than 300 energetic gamers.

Political adverts and recruitment in video video games isn’t simply restricted to this marketing campaign cycle. Then-candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 marketing campaign launched the idea to politics after they bought adverts in 18 video games together with Want for Velocity: Carbon and Madden NFL 13 on Microsoft’s Xbox Stay service and the cellular model of Tetris, in keeping with NPR.