“Call of Duty: Black Ops II” isn’t the only way Avenged Sevenfold is incorporating gaming culture into the marketing of “Hail to the King.” The band has teamed with Machinima for an animated series to air this fall on the online videogame network’s Happy Hour channel, directed by Jon Schnepp (Cartoon Network’s “Metalocalypse”). Co-financed by Warner Bros. Records, the series aligns the band with one of YouTube’s top 10 channel partners (Machinima ranked No. 7 in July, according to comScore, with 18.1 million unique viewers) and the Web’s leading destination for gaming-related video content.
The Avenged series marks a first-of-its-kind show built around a musical act for Machinima, and one with a high precedent. In 2010, Warner Bros. tapped the site to create a user-generated music video for the band’s song “Nightmare” using gameplay footage from “Call of Duty.” The clip was so successful, it’s racked up more than 6 million views since its initial posting. Machinima had been making in-roads into the music industry earlier this year when it inked a deal with Ultra Records to create content and run ad sales for the label’s channel.
“There are certain types of music-metal, EDM and some hip-hop-that seem to really resonate with our audience,” Machinima chairman/co-founder Allen DeBevoise says.
Even though there isn’t a specific gaming element to the Avenged Sevenfold series, DeBevoise likens the band’s appeal to the diverse tastes exhibited in the halls of Comic-Con. “Our brand is focused on fan culture, and we feel like our first cousin is stories that come out of those communities,” he says.
The fan-fiction approach works well for the site-“Mortal Kombat: Legacy,” a professionally produced companion series to the popular videogame franchise, racked up 60 million views in 2011, making it one of the most-watched Web series of that year.