June PLAYBOY Goes 3D, But Does Anyone Care?

With plummeting sales down to just 1.5 million circulation from the November 1972 sales peak of 7,161,651, PLAYBOY Magazine hopes to prove that it's still relevant by offering up a 3D issue for June. With wacky 3D glasses and PLAYBOY Magazine, you've now got the perfect storm of going blind.

However, with most of the men's magazine market going into much harder content including sexual penetration in magazines like HUSTLER, CLUB, CHERI, HIGH SOCIETY and others, PLAYBOY is a little bit like the odd man out. PLAYBOY tries to position itself as having a few very softcore and not very explicit pictorials of beautiful women along with very respectable journalism and high profile and timely interviews. The joke about reading PLAYBOY just for the articles is more true than not, because PLAYBOY is indeed much better for the written portion than for the softcore pictorials. The written portion, including some controversial interviews often make the news.

And PLAYBOY has other problems as well. One disgruntled stockholder in the company recently sued the magazine's founder Hugh Hefner, claiming that his own high living lifestyle had ruined the company's stock value, although Hefner has far less than a hands on grasp on the company and is as much of a mascot as the familiar bunny character.

With the downward spiral of sales at PLAYBOY, the magazine often resorts to gimmicks to gain attention lately such as a recent Marge Simpson issue. But some interviews such as the recent controversial one by musician John Mayer where he made some unfortunate statements on race relations made lots more news.

If you're into 3D, then the June PLAYBOY is worth collecting. But, both SWANK and CLUB Magazines have done more daring 3D in men's magazines years before, so this is nothing new. If anything, PLAYBOY is still a holdover from the 1950's, where 3D started as well. And this oldness just hasn't kept up with times good enough where ROLLING STONE often does more edgy journalism better, and the other magazines and the Internet do porn much better than PLAYBOY ever intends to.

PLAYBOY is a good magazine still. But by not keeping up with the times, it's days are probably limited. Some day the magazine will likely be gone.