Virgin Play

Virgin PLAY S.A.

Former type	Private
Industry	Video game industry
Fate	Liquidation
Founded	1995 (As Virgin Interactive España SA) November 1, 2002 (2002-11-01) (As Virgin Play)
Founder	Tim Chaney and Paco Encinas
Defunct	September 2009
Headquarters	Madrid, Spain
Subsidiaries	V.2 PLAY V.2 PLAY Portugal PlayV Ltd (50/50 Joint Venture with Playlogic Entertainment)

Virgin PLAY S.A. (Formerly Virgin Interactive España S.A.) was a Spanish video game distributor, and later a video game publisher.

History

In 1995, Virgin Interactive Entertainment opened up a Spanish subsidiary known as Virgin Interactive España S.A., who would market and distribute the company's titles (later including Interplay Entertainment, Titus Software and The 3DO Company) in Spain.

On May 14, 2002, Virgin Interactive España SA was purchased from Titus Interactive by Tim Chaney along with former Spanish president and founder Paco Encinas. The branch was then separated from the main Virgin Interactive company, which Titus Software already owned, and due to this sale, the company could keep its own identity as a Virgin brand. On November 1, 2002 the division's name was changed to Virgin PLAY S.A.. Under the new name, Virgin Play signed deals with companies such as Midway Games, Ignition Entertainment and Koch Media which would allow Virgin Play to distribute their games in the Spanish market. Interplay and Titus' games continued to be distributed by the company.

In 2003, Virgin Play announced to release the Korean handheld console, GP32 to Spain, Italy and Portugal in place of Game Park, who went into trading difficulties.

In 2006, Virgin Play announced that they would start self-publishing games not just in Spain, but in other European countries as well. Their first 3 self-published games would be a game based on the movie Torrente 3: El Protector, An action game called Final Armada and a tactical shooter called Dead 'N' Furious.

In Mid 2007, the company's publishing division was renamed to V.2 Play.

In July 2007, Virgin Play announced they would be opening an office in Lisbon, Portugal in order to expand the market and offer a more personalized treatment to Portuguese companies. The office would be branded under the V.2 Play name. In the same month they signed a deal with Real Madrid to publish a game based on the football team.

In May 2008, Playlogic Entertainment and Virgin Play founded a UK joint venture called PlayV, PlayV would bring PC, console and handheld products from both companies to the UK market while also offering PR, marketing and sales solutions to additional partners looking to penetrate the UK retail market. In Septembher 2008, Tim Chaney left Virgin Play and later setup his own gaming platform, called Zattikka in June 2009.^[1]

In June 2009, Virgin Play asked a Spanish Court for a three month period to seek a solution with its creditors due to a lack of liquidity. Exactly 3 months later in September 2009, Virgin Play entered liquidation and ceased all operations.^[2]

List of Published Games

Links

Sources