NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Jan 28, 2014) - Digital First Ventures, the venture capital arm of Digital First Media, announced today a strategic partnership with loyalty gaming platform Game Cloud.

The partnership provides Digital First Media access to Game Cloud's network of more than 150 best-in-class games supported by a loyalty engine that delivers games and branding on mobile, social, ads and apps.

"Game Cloud will provide an entertaining, social experience for our customers that will integrate seamlessly into Digital First Media's national network of news and information websites and apps," said Joe Anto, Managing Director of Digital First Ventures. "We are giving readers an innovative and unique way to interact with our content, while providing advertisers with a highly engaging means of reaching our audience."

Along with access to Game Cloud's existing social arcade -- which will allow Digital First Media to add games on branded pages across the Company's digital portfolio -- Game Cloud's Content Gamification Platform and Game Ad Campaign provide new avenues for Digital First Media to connect with users and advertisers.

The Content Gamification Platform will feature audience-focused news quizzes, photo searches and social contests. The Game Ad Campaign suite includes rich media game ads, gamified video ads, social quiz ads and social leaderboard ads.

"Game Cloud makes every action in the Game Cloud ecosystem fun. Digital First Media users play great games with brands they love, wherever they are, get rewarded, and build a social identity and loyalty that keeps them coming back for more," said Brian Wane, CEO of Game Cloud. "With Game Cloud's publisher-focused CMS, Digital First Media can customize the gaming experience and build higher engagement, retention and affinity across key moments of the brand lifecycle. And, of course, drive revenue."

About Digital First Ventures
 Digital First Ventures (DFV) is focused on helping entrepreneurs incubate, validate and accelerate businesses in the digital media space. As a division of Digital First Media -- which operates more than 800 media products serving 67 million customers each month and generates annual revenues of more than $1.4 billion -- DFV is ideally suited to accelerate value creation for seed, early and growth stage digital media companies.

About Game Cloud
 Game Cloud -- http://gamecloudnetwork.com/ -- is a network of best-in-class games built to scale for brands, supported by a next-gen loyalty engine, and played where ever fans live -- on mobile, social, ads and apps.