Best Buy $BBY launched Best Buy Gamers in beta on Tuesday, a free online gaming destination with content from IGN, a subsidiary of Ziff Davis. The site is available on BestBuy.com and the Best Buy app, the company said.
Best Buy Gamers combines IGN reviews, articles and videos with trailers, polls, sweepstakes, store event listings, preorders and deals. Users can create profiles that list their preferred platforms, devices and genres and how they like to play. Best Buy said it will add features, content and benefits as users give feedback during the beta.
"Best Buy Gamers is another way we're reaching more customers and bringing fans closer to the culture they love," Patrick McGinnis, Best Buy's chief revenue officer, said in a statement.
The partnership with IGN also includes a series called “Out This Month,” which will cover gaming products arriving at Best Buy and run on IGN.com, YouTube and social channels. IGN’s social team will cover Best Buy events starting this holiday season, and IGN will host a holiday gift guide and a shoppable livestream. The IGN reviews and scores on the site are produced by IGN’s editorial team and presented as published on IGN.com, the companies said.
"Retail and media are moving toward each other, and this partnership is what that looks like when two leaders build it on purpose," said Kim Hatfield, IGN's senior vice president of sales and integrated marketing.
Nearly all Best Buy stores will open late-night on Nov. 5 for the launch of “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time,” the companies said. Best Buy also plans to open a dedicated in-store gaming area in Torrance, California, in November, with events hosted with IGN. A “League of Legends” pop-up with Alienware and Team Liquid is planned for the Brooklyn store.
Zelda is a Nintendo remake, and Take-Two Interactive $TTWO’s “Grand Theft Auto VI” is set to launch Nov. 19, according to CNBC. McGinnis told CNBC the timing is “pretty perfect,” and said Best Buy has worked on the platform for more than a year. The Torrance location will feature activations from Sony $SONY, Nintendo and Microsoft $MSFT, according to CNBC.
Best Buy Ads, the retailer's ad business, will offer advertisers space inside the experience, according to Adweek.
Customers can enter sweepstakes through the end of November, including a prize that gives the winner two minutes to fill a shopping cart in a Best Buy store and keep the contents. The first 200,000 My Best Buy members to sign up for a Best Buy Gamers profile will receive a $5 bonus reward, the company said.
Best Buy raised its full-year financial guidance in August after second-quarter comparable sales rose 4.1%. Jason Bonfig, the company's incoming CEO, is set to succeed Corie Barry on Nov. 1. Bonfig told analysts during an August earnings call that Best Buy anticipates shoppers' appetite for “Grand Theft Auto VI” will strengthen results in its games business, according to CNBC.