Animal Crossing gets political as Biden campaign lets players set up virtual yard signs

“Animal Crossing: New Horizons” players can now decorate their yards with Joe Biden campaign signs.

On Tuesday, the Biden/Kamala Harris campaign unveiled four signs that can be download using QR codes: Team Joe logo, Joe Pride logo, an official Biden-Harris logo and an image of aviator sunglasses, Biden’s campaign staff told McClatchy News.

“This is just the start of how we plan to engage players ahead of November as we’re already looking forward to rolling out more digital swag, voter education tools, and organizing efforts on Animal Crossing and other platforms,” Christian Tom, Biden campaign’s Director of Digital Partnerships, told McClatchy News.

“Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” a family friendly Nintendo video game, has broken records since its release on March 20, selling 11 million copies by the end of the month, The Guardian reported.

Animal Crossing was first released in Japan in 2001 and in North America in 2002, according to AZCentral. More than 30 million copies of the game have been sold since its release and players can build their own houses, do landscaping and interact with animals.

Since the coronavirus emerged in the U.S. in March, millions of people have turned to video games as they are stuck at home, according to The Guardian.

Biden has focused on digital campaigns during the pandemic and has struggled to appeal to younger voters, The Hill reported.

Biden is not alone in his digital approach to campaigning for president.

• In 2008, Barack Obama became the first presidential candidate to campaign through video games, according to Reuters. Obama’s campaign bought ads in 18 games on Microsoft’s Xbox Live in an effort to sway voters in 10 battleground states. The ads were featured in games from “Guitar Hero 3” to “NFL Tour.”
• A mobile game in 2012 called “Vote!!!” pitted Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney against Obama, CNN reported.
• Hillary Clinton held a campaign event at a Pokéstop in Ohio back in 2016, according to CNN.
• President Donald Trump was featured in several video games in 2016, including “Make America Great Again: The Trump Presidency,” according to Quartz. Trump also joined Twitch, Amazon’s video game streaming site, in October 2019 as part of his re-election campaign. As of September 2020, the verified account has 134,000 followers.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders from Vermont and Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur, also joined the streaming platform in 2019 when they were vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, The Verge reported. Sanders gained 70,000 followers in the first 24 hours he was on the platform and 20,000 people watched the Democratic debate from his channel.

This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 3:49 PM with the headline "Animal Crossing gets political as Biden campaign lets players set up virtual yard signs."