Co-founder Jamin Smith explores how the Playbill is "another mad experiment in a series of mad experiments that have – so far – not sunk the business"

Over recent years, more and more companies have moved away from the traditional publishing model and set their sights on indie curation.

Inner Pocket Publishing set up its publisher-as-curator model over the summer; now Pantaloon is launching the Playbill, a subscription service for an "evolving library of bold and bizarre" games.

Partly funded by a $150k investment announced earlier this year, the Playbill launches with 14 titles plus Pantaloon's original games. These include Sub-Verge, Occlude, It Takes a War, Boxroom, Offbeat, and the recently launched Rolla.

"The Playbill is wider than just the games themselves, and aims to offer a connective tissue of curation, conversation and playful systems tying it all together," Pantaloon co-founder Jamin Smith tells GamesIndustry.biz.

As a curated collection of games, it's easy to compare the Playbill to the Criterion Collection, which Smith cites as a regular inspiration. "While it's different functionally, it does share that sense of being on the inner circle of something; of being part of a community of like-minded connoisseurs who share the same passion and excitement for not just the medium but the craft itself," he notes.

On the games side, Smith says Humble, Apple Arcade, and Xbox Game Pass are "useful comparisons" to the Playbill's model. However, he points out that these services are "also wildly different" from what Pantaloon offers.

"Those services are almost too big; the vast amount of choice is to the detriment of the surrounding conversation.

Source link