Co-founder Jamin Smith explores how the Playbill is “another mad experiment in a series of mad experiments that have \u2013 so far \u2013 not sunk the business”<\/p>\n
Image credit: Pantaloon <\/p>\n
Over recent years, more and more companies have moved away from the traditional publishing model and set their sights on indie curation.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/em><\/p>\n 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;<\/p>\n