CHICAGO—With plans to create its own label by the end of the year, Playboy Enterprises is getting into the video gaming business in a big way. Paul H. Lee, the company’s managing director for new digital ventures, told PaidContent.org that the move is part of a larger strategy to nudge the brand in a more mainstream direction.
As part of the lead-up to having its own label, Playboy has partnered with German online gaming portal Bigpoint.net on the launch of its urban crime fantasy, Poisonville, which exited out of beta Wednesday and is currently available on Playboy.com.
According to PaidContent, the games will aim at Playboy’s primary target of 18- to 35-year-old men. Lee told the site that the company has found a lot of overlap between gaming sites and visitors to Playboy.com.
“One of our core competencies involves using our brand to present quality content,” he said. “Gaming is a growing, mainstream area. And part of our plan is to extend Playboy’s brand into the mainstream.”
Without going into detail regarding the specific level of funding for the project—“significant”—or what developers, if any, the company is currently in talks with, Lee did acknowledge that the search is on.
“We’re looking for quality developers and the time I spent looking at Bigpoint showed me that they fit the bill for what we needed to get started,” Lee told PaidContent.org. “Previously, Playboy’s gaming interests included a few licensing deals and some editorial in the form of gaming reviews. But there was no clear, overarching strategy in place. With Bigpoint, we’ve established a clear path in terms of where we want to go.”
The site reported that while there currently is no equity arrangement between Playboy and Bigpoint.net, Lee indicated that future partnerships could include some investment.
“At this point, we haven’t made any decisions, and we’ll see how these first steps go,” he said. “We could possibly do some investing down the road, depending on what we find and what our needs are.”
