Playboy Expected to Launch MetaMansion Virtual World This Year

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.”

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The project, a collaboration with Animoca Brands’s The Sandbox, was announced last summer. But further details have so far been kept under wraps.

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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.

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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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