Seeking to reach the widest swath of gamers nationwide, FreePlay Labs has chosen 7-Eleven TV as the exclusive TV partner to promote its Cowboys & Aliens videogame, Cowboys & Aliens – Silver City Defense.
The announcement was made today by FreePlay CEO Greg Easley and Darren Mann and David Veckerelli of Digital Display Networks (DDN), creator and operator of the 7-Eleven TV network. The deal comes three months after entertainment company Platinum Studios licensed its top-selling Cowboys & Aliens graphic novel to FreePlay to create an interactive game for Apple's iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
7-Eleven TV is currently expanding from approximately 3,000 convenience stores to more than 6,200 locations next year. At scale, 7-Eleven TV will become one of the largest digital out-of-home television networks in the United States, reaching 200 million shoppers monthly by June 2012. 7-Eleven TV programming is customized for demographics, locations and dayparts, with content that includes national and local weather, news and entertainment.
"While we are focused largely on reaching this audience through the internet, 7-Eleven TV offers enormous access to the demographics we are after, given that a significant percentage of 7-Eleven consumers comprise a vital consumer segment of active gamers and app purchasers," said FreePlay's Easley.
Further commenting on the agreement, DDN principals Mann and Veckerelli said, "While we continue to cultivate a broad base of advertisers, this deal with FreePlay opens the door to other game developers and publishers looking to impact this hard-to-reach audience."
Cowboys & Aliens tells the story of an alien invasion in the late 19th century. The graphic novel, created by Platinum Studios Chairman and CEO Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, was first published in December 2006, becoming the largest ordered graphic novel of the year. In March and April of 2011, it returned to the New York Times best-seller list for three weeks and is currently on the list again in paperback version.
