British Army Cancels Fortnite Event, Denies Aiming It At Children
The British Army's controversial Fortnite streaming event will no longer take place. In a statement to TheGamer, the Army says that it has "taken all feedback into consideration", and has cancelled the stream originally set to take place this week.
The Army also says that the event was "not intended for children", following the backlash it received for hosting the event in a game with a large child playerbase. It says that the map it created in Fortnite Creative was "never intended for wider use", as some feared it would be used as a recruitment tool.
"Having taken all feedback into consideration, and in consultation with our talent partners, we regret to announce that the Fortnite livestream series will no longer be going ahead," reads a statement from the Ministry of Defence's press office, sent to TheGamer.
"The campaign was not intended for children. The social media posts were designed solely to promote awareness of the livestreams and the map was built for influencers to play and to stream live to their audiences."
The statement continues, saying the team would have taken "measures to ensure age-appropriate audiences". The measures it shared with us were working with influencers that reportedly have a "majority 18-24 audience", and putting an 18+ age requirement on the stream. It also says that anyone who played the map would have to go through Fortnite's own parental controls.
Having taken all feedback into consideration, and in consultation with our talent partners, we regret to announce that the Fortnite livestream series will no longer be going ahead.
Finally, the Army says, "The gaming community is an important audience which we want to reach authentically." With this in mind, we will likely see more attempts to use games to attract interest to the British Army, as the US Army has done in previous years.
The original tweet that announced the event has since been taken down. This announcement was controversial in itself, as some of the more critical
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