Play was a prototype created for Village Voice Media under direction of publisher Michael Sigman. They wanted to spin off a glossy music magazine from their newspapers.

__ To keep production brief and cost low, we recycled stories and photographs from one of their many music-rich papers, LA Weekly. Thousands of copies were then given to sales reps who used them to test the waters with potential advertisers.
__ In the end, Play was never launched, due in part to the terrible state of the music industry which would have ostensibly been a principal source of revenue. The name and logo were done before the game magazine Play existed.