DALLAS -- Fans of "Ghostbusters" who visit 7-Eleven stores in Canada might find something weird peering through their mobile device.
That’s because 7-Eleven Canada is turning all of its stores into "dimensional doors," where consumers playing the Ghostbusters World mobile game can collect traps, weapons and other resources to help them take down ghosts.
Ghostbusters World is similar to the mobile augmented-reality (AR) game "Pokemon Go," in which players roam the real world catching Pokemon on their mobile device. But in Ghostbusters World, players fight and trap ghosts from Ghostbusters films, TV shows, comics and video games.
"As the largest name in convenience retail, 7-Eleven is always looking for innovative ways to provide our customers with the best in-store experiences," said Doug Rosencrans, vice president and general manager of 7-Eleven Canada. "For today's consumer, this means bridging the gap between mobile devices and physical retail locations."
The AR game is available from the Apple App Store and Google Play, both in Canada and in the United States. 7-Eleven partnered with Sony Pictures Consumer Products, Columbia Pictures subsidiary Ghost Corps, mobile game publisher FourThirtyThree and developer NextAge to integrate the game with 7-Eleven Canada stores.
"We are thrilled to work with 7-Eleven to bring special activations for Ghostbusters World to their locations across Canada," says Hyunseok Suh, CEO of NextAge. "As the game's first co-branded effort, we believe this collaboration will mean exciting things for our players as well as 7-Eleven customers and we look forward to expanding on the relationship in the future."
Irving, Texas-based 7-Eleven operates, licenses or franchises more than 66,000 stores globally. The retailer is No. 1 on CSP's 2018 Top 202 ranking of c-store chains by number of company-owned retail outlets.
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