Porn is a huge driving force behind early user adoption for emerging technologies. At XBiz Miami 2016, a business to business convention for the adult industry, VR was one of the hottest topics that leaked its way into every conversation. At the panel talk titled, “VIRTUAL REALITY: HYPE OR HOT?”, the biggest figures pushing VR porn to the forefront gathered to discuss about VR in the adult sector.
XBiz Miami VR Panel
Lee Bond of the fantasy fueled VR webcam experience, AliceX.com, claims that the VR porn market segment is fueled by 18-35 males with disposable income. It’s no coincidence that this demographic segment also falls under the largest mobile gamer audience. Alice X offers live webcam feeds placed with a green screen background allowing users to live their wildest fantasies in VR. Bond proclaims that VR in adult is already an ROI positive venture and has a user base in the tens of thousands.
“The growth has been much faster on the customer side…”
For the wins that Alice X has had, it’s no surprise that every adult webcam site is now looking into VR.
Ela Darling of Cam4VR shares a similar experience. As the first ever VR Cam Girl, Darling’s ambitions of bringing VR pornography to the masses is truly passion fueled and is a demonstration of “roll up your sleeves” American entrepreneurship. Darling has built her own stereoscopic camera solution with stitching software and plans to offer it at a low entry price of $250, to allow easy access to cam girls who wish to enter into the market. The repercussions of this will be felt throughout the entire VR community: a steady stream of on-demand and fresh content. It’s one of the biggest complaints about VR so far, and porn seems to have a solution.
“With virtual reality, customers are willing to pay for porn again […] They realize that if they don’t support it, it won’t exist.”
According to VirtualPorn360.com, over 78% of all VR Headset owners have viewed VR porn. In the same report, it also claims that 3 out of 4 headset owners own a mobile VR viewer such as the Google Cardboard or Samsung GearVR.
A major contributor to those figures is Todd Glider of BaDoink.com. After sealing deals such as partnering with PornHub to bring free streaming VR porn content to the masses, Glider claims to have seen an 1800x increase in traffic since the launch of BaDoink.
“Porn is the killer VR app.”
His comparisons with how VR gaming has not yet reached the potential of the technology reminds us of how far gaming still has to come to convince the majority of users to invest and jump over to the platform. Todd emphasizes that VR allows the user to empathize with the scene in new ways that was never before possible with traditional 2D media.
Speaking of deals with BaDoink, a new VR development studio aims to create “Myst for porn.” VixenVR, comprised of ex-Activision folks, have built a virtual Las Vegas tower with portals leading to different VR adult experiences. VRScout caught up with Founder Jimmy Hess and talked with him about VRVixen’s new gaming experience, “Temptation Towers.”
Like many people in the adult film industry, Hess started off as a VR company that “fell” into the porn sector. Using the Unreal engine, VRVixen has created a beautiful seamless gaming portal to view pornography in what may be the world’s most immersive porn experience so far. As a user stares off into the distance, they’ll find an young female browsing through the closet.
When a user walks towards the closet, the 360 video takes over and allows viewing into the premium content without any play buttons or disruption. Key partnerships with content providers like BaDoink has guaranteed a steady stream of content for VixenVR’s new software offering.
On top of that, VixenVR has recently signed a deal with the infamous strip club, “Gold Club,” in San Francisco making the world’s first official licensed strip club VR experience.
Overall, VR porn will be pushing innovation as the demands for higher quality stereoscopic cameras and faster streaming bandwidth are required for the next generation of porn to really blow your pants off.
