Playboy's Web3 lead Liz Suman sat down with Decrypt's Dan Roberts at NFT Paris to tell the story of how the 70-year-old magazine brand got into Web3 and preview its upcoming MetaMansion in The Sandbox, which will give special access privileges to those with a Playboy Rabbitar NFT.
The Playboy MetaMansion is coming.
Playboy’s Web3 lead Liz Suman told Decrypt at NFT Paris last week that the virtual world is slated for launch this year, and that there will be ways to get in even for users who aren’t part of the magazine brand’s Rabbitar community.
“It’s been the plan all along for the Rabbitars to be the VIPs of the MetaMansion experience,” Suman, who is VP for art, editorial, and Web3 at the 70-year-old media brand, said in an interview.
“That is still very much the case, while also opening it up in this way that’s integrating The Sandbox’s community, maybe onboarding other people who are interested in web3 [...] and making a space that is a place for everyone.”
Creator royalties have taken a back seat in the NFT space as marketplace OpenSea recently slashed fees in response to its new rival Blur, which has surged ahead in terms of trading volume on NFTs in part by charging zero trading fees and not enforcing creator royalties.
Creator royalties, however, provide an ongoing revenue stream to NFT projects beyond their initial sales—typically a 5% to 10% cut when a token is resold—and many companies are now being led astray, Animoca Brands Chairman Yat S...
The project, a collaboration with Animoca Brands’s The Sandbox, was announced last summer. But further details have so far been kept under wraps.
Introducing Playboy’s MetaMansion
The MetaMansion, which Suman described as the “north star” of the company’s Web3 strategy, builds on Playboy’s existing ventures into the metaverse.
In 2021, the group dropped its first NFT collection, tapping into its decades-spanning archive of photography and artwork.
Later that year, the “Rabbitar” avatars were released, with 11,953 of the 3D rabbit character NFTs put on sale. According to NFT marketplace OpenSea, the total trading volume of the collection had reached 2,779 ETH at the time of writing, the equivalent of more than $4.5 million.
Iconic lifestyle and entertainment magazine brand Playboy announced today that it will launch digital collectibles in the form of blockchain-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs), via a partnership with the Winklevoss-owned NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway.
Playboy—which ceased regular print publication in 2020—plans to tap into its 67-year archive of classic photography and artwork, as well as collaborate with modern artists on fresh creations to sell as crypto collectibles. The brand also intends to o...
Although access to the MetaMansion should be possible even for users who don’t hold a Rabbitar, Suman said it won’t be possible to access all the “cool places” without one.
No more details were available about when exactly the MetaMansion will open its doors, but Suman confirmed that “the plan is this year.”
Taking a broader look at the picture for media brands entering the metaverse, Suman said she would tell skeptics in traditional media to take a “deeper look” at what the industry has to offer.
“A lot of things are changing and evolving in real-time, and I think it’s too soon to have a verdict,” she said. “There’s a real opportunity for storytelling that is not traditional. To me, that’s what’s interesting.”
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