Playster

Playster is a global subscription-based entertainment service, providing on-demand movies, television shows, music, video games, ebooks and audiobooks.

Playster was founded in Montreal with private equity in 2014.

During its Beta phase, the company announced content partnerships with several major publishers and distributors, including HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Harlequin, Paramount Pictures, Cinedigm and Gameloft. In March 2015, Playster became a member of the Los Angeles-based Digital Entertainment Group.

In June 2015, Playster announced it had partnered with digital audio distributor Findaway in order to add audiobooks to its collection. The company later claimed that it had been driven to make the addition having seen competing services such as Scribd and Audible introduce restrictions to their ebooks and audiobook catalogs.

At its launch in December 2015, Playster was giving subscribers access to more than 250,000 books, 50,000 audiobooks and 15 million songs.According to Forbes, the company also opened a new office in New York at the end of 2015.In April 2016, Playster expanded its audiobook library to include the Big Five publishers. As reported by Adweek, "the platform now carries audiobooks from: Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins UK, Recorded Books, Tantor, and Highbridge. HarperCollins US titles are already in the library."

In May 2016, Playster announced its partnership with StreetLib, the Italian-based independent multi-language publishing distributor. In addition to the announcement, Playster also launched its affiliate program, allowing authors and publishers to further promote the content they have featured on Playster.

Playster announced partnerships with Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and The Orchard in September 2016, bringing its streaming music collection up to par with other industry leaders in 15 countries.

In December 2017, Playster announced to customers that it would be doubling the price of its audiobook membership to $29.95 or allowing users to access under half of its library for their current price of $14.95.

The subscription model used by Playster differs from other on-demand services in that multiple types of media are brought together under a single subscription. Business and publishing magazines have suggested that Playster's all-inclusive offering is an attempt to "revive" the digital subscription model which is considered to be struggling, particularly in the field of ebooks.

Playster's recommendations technology uses a combination of metadata and user behavior insights in order to recommend similar titles to users across different media types. For example, upon watching a movie the user could be recommended a related book or video game.

Playster can be used in any web browser on a desktop or laptop computer, as well as Android and iOS devices.