Amazon Ads Launches Fortnite Game ‘The Glitch’ for Brand Marketing

Amazon Ads is rolling out a new service on its ‘Fortnite’ gaming platform that will provide brands with marketing opportunities and guaranteed promotion through Amazon-owned streamer Twitch.

The project, titled “The Glitch,” is described as an “integrated galaxy of brand-aligned playable worlds” within “Fortnite” created by “Halo” co-creator Alexander Seropian and his game creator Look North World.

The new venture will be officially announced on Friday at the TwitchCon conference in San Diego, where it will unveil its first brand partners, Domino’s and Peloton.

According to Amazon Ads, “The Twitch and Look North World teams have intentionally built player-brand interaction into every corner; for example, players can stumble upon a fully modeled Domino’s pizzeria. By engaging in a ‘pizza party,’ their health is fully restored – allowing them to get back into the action and providing a strong connection to the brand’s product.”

With “The Glitch,” Amazon Ads is trying to solve the complexities of in-game advertising by making it as intrusive as possible for gamers while still offering brands access to this target group, primarily Generation Z.

“When we were creating The Glitch, our number one priority was to create a solid game that people would actually play, stream, share, and that would last,” said Andrea Garabedian, head of brand partnerships studio at Amazon Ads. Diversity. “So we partnered with Alex Seropian, who is the founder of the ‘Fortnite’-focused game studio Look North World, who is also the co-creator of the ‘Halo’ series and the co-founder of Bungie. And as part of that, you can see that we took the time to really make sure that we were working with a real game developer and studio, because we wanted to make sure that streamers wanted to stream it, wanted to play it, and wanted to come back.”

Twitch is entering the equation for Fortnite, as Amazon Ads is partnering with several popular Twitch streamers to make sure they’re playing and live-streaming “The Glitch” when the game releases on Friday, and will continue to grow the game even if there’s no new branding universe to promote in-game.

“Our goal is to offer players a diverse selection of gaming experiences within ‘The Glitch,’ both in the base game and in the fully customizable and connected branded worlds that will be a part of it,” Garabedian said, noting a “strong gameplay loop” strategy focused on streamers who “will want to play it, will want to stream it on Twitch, and people will want to watch it as well.”