The big-box electronics retailer, it seems, would prefer that the customers who camp outside its stores for major video game releases also do their reading there.
Best Buy has introduced a new online destination called Best Buy Gamers, a portal currently in beta testing that will offer reviews, articles, trailers, and videos produced in partnership with IGN, the Ziff Davis-owned gaming publication that has been a primary destination for the joystick set since the late 1990s.
The timing is not accidental. The portal arrives ahead of what promises to be a particularly fevered holiday season for gaming, with the long-anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto VI and a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time — a title that carries a certain nostalgic weight for players of a certain age (which is to say, players who now have disposable income and perhaps children of their own to introduce to the franchise).
Best Buy Ads, the retailer's advertising arm, will sell media placements within the new portal, adding another surface to the retail media networks that have proliferated across the industry in recent years. The arrangement means that a game publisher could, in theory, purchase advertising that appears alongside editorial content about its own release — a configuration that has become familiar enough in digital media to barely warrant mention.
The partnership reflects a broader pattern among retailers seeking to become not merely places where products are sold but destinations where purchasing decisions are shaped. Whether gamers — a cohort not historically known for brand loyalty to electronics chains — will choose to consume their coverage at a Best Buy address remains to be seen.
For now, the portal joins a crowded field of places where one might read about whether the new Zelda lives up to the original. The difference, Best Buy hopes, is that this one comes with a shopping cart already attached.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Best Buy and IGN Pair Up Ahead Of Major Game Releases"