Video Game Firm Hits Print Key for Promotion

Sometimes, the old-fashioned ways work too.

Irvine computer and video game maker Interplay Productions Inc. is all over the Web and has been getting a lot of notice because several of its games are featured at the new and extremely high-tech Sega Gameworks entertainment center in Seattle.

But now its Interplay OEM Inc. subsidiary has signed a marketing deal that will put artwork from some of its hottest games on notebooks--the paper kind.

The deal with Vestwin Paper Corp. allows Interplay to engage in the kind of subliminal advertising that drives some parents crazy but lets manufacturers--of games, toys and even fast-food products--imprint their brands deeply on the psyches of the nation’s free-spending youth.

By late summer, in time for the 1997 back-to-school season, Vestwin will ship more than 1 million lined-paper notebooks featuring four-color art from Interplay games on their covers. In many cases, crows Interplay OEM President Jill Goldworn, the notebooks will be prominently displayed in stores such as Office Depot and Wal-Mart that also sell Interplay computer and video games.

Separately, Interplay OEM has signed a deal with Hearst Corp.’s Avon Books paperback division to publish three novels based on parent Interplay Production’s popular arcade game, Descent. The sci-fi trilogy will take place in the same world portrayed in the game and will be targeted to adolescents and adults, Goldworn said.

Interplay has sold more than 6 million copies of Descent, which typically is provided along with other business, educational and gaming software by makers of notebook and desktop computers.

“This has created a franchise,” Goldworn said. Spinning off paperback novels and notebook covers “is no different than what Hollywood does, spinning off products and merchandising from their movies,” she said.

John O’Dell can be reached at (714) 966-5831 and at john.odell@latimes.com