Curator-turned-publisher Pantaloon has unleashed a subscription service that fans of indie games might be interested in digging into. The Playbill is a take on Xbox Game Pass, albeit one that focuses on “bold and bizarre” titles.
The initial lineup features third-party games such as Buckshot Roulette, Silt, Ex Sanguis and Cabin Factory. Those sit alongside Pantaloon’s own games: Sub-Verge, Occlude, It Takes a War, Boxroom, Rolla and the delightful music creation sim Offbeat.
Much like Game Pass offers first-party Xbox titles (save for new Call of Duty offerings) to subscribers on day one, the Playbill will gain all of Pantaloon’s own games as soon as they’re released. The service even has its own timed exclusive in the shape of Virtue: Prologue, a visual novella companion piece for Virtue and a Sledgehammer, which is out next week (and a game I’m very much looking forward to.
In addition, the Playbill offers demos, playtests and “abandoned prototypes” for you to check out in a section called the Green Room. At the outset, there are playtests for a few interesting-looking games, namely Isle Goblin, Mr Magpie’s Harmless Card Game and Lemonade Apocalypse.
“We want the Playbill to be a celebration of more experimental and eccentric games,” Pantaloon founder Jamin Smith said. “The nature of the model reduces that barrier to entry for players to check out genres and experiences that might not be surfaced by Steam’s market-shaping algorithms. It’s also worth stating that we won’t feature or platform any games that use genAI in any form; the Playbill is a celebration of the craft of making games.”
Pantaloon moved into publishing after building an audience of more than 50,000 newsletter subscribers, who were able to complete puzzles to receive game keys or pay for codes for its curated titles. The puzzles are free to access on the Playbill, along with the service’s community features, Virtue: Prologue and a couple of ARGs. The full lineup of games is available through a Primo subscription, which costs a reasonable $5 per month or $60 per year.
It’s worth noting that the service is key-based. Pantaloon will cycle games out of the Playbill when it runs out of keys and it will add new titles on a regular basis. Annual subscribers can snag all 13 games in the initial lineup, as well as each new title that’s introduced.
Things are different for monthly subscribers. They’ll get a guaranteed game each month, and they won’t be able to pick which one. “The monthly titles are part of bespoke partnerships, so the games are defined,” Smith told Engadget. “That said, some of our puzzles — like this month’s — allow a choice of reward to those that can solve.”
If you sign up for a monthly plan, you’ll be able to access all of the games after you’ve been a subscriber for six consecutive months. This is “a mechanism just to prevent somebody getting all 14 titles straight away and then canceling,” Smith added.