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The First Real Boom in Virtual Reality? It's Pornography. (wsj.com) 194

Posted by msmash from the first-movers dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Pornography has provided the first real boom in VR, and adult-entertainment companies like Naughty America are leading the way. In the 18 months after producing its first VR video, the San Diego-based studio released 108 more, making it one of the most prolific producers of VR content in the world. In 2017, the company operated a booth at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and became the first adult business allowed to exhibit in 19 years.

It's not surprising that adult-entertainment companies are among the first movers in the nascent VR industry. After adult content helped popularize new media formats like VHS, Blu-ray and streaming video, the idea that porn drives digital innovation became a widely accepted truth. What is surprising is how big VR porn has become, and how quickly. In 2016, Samsung, HTC, Google, Sony and Facebook-owned Oculus sold just over 6.1 million headsets worldwide, according to an estimate from SuperData, a videogame market research firm. In December 2016 alone, Naughty America's customers downloaded more than 20 million VR videos, the company said. VR porn consumers are also more willing to pay for content than consumers of typical online porn.
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The First Real Boom in Virtual Reality? It's Pornography. More

The First Real Boom in Virtual Reality? It's Pornography.

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  • Surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @10:26AM (#56934586) Homepage

    What is surprising is how big VR porn has become, and how quickly.

    LOL!

    Has somebody not been paying attention for the last 30 years?

    • Re:Surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sycodon ( 149926 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @11:33AM (#56935038)

      I believe Porn has led the way in leveraging technology in one way or another since the beginning f time.

      I bet the first Cave Art was probably of naked women. but it was erased by someone's mother.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The breeding-related instincts are written pretty deeply into our DNA. People fall into weird ideologies about sexuality, and especially about it being some sort of immature thing to obsess over. But obsessing over it is exactly what we are designed to do.

      • You:

        I believe Porn has led the way in leveraging technology in one way or another since the beginning f time.

        TFS:

        After adult content helped popularize new media formats like VHS, Blu-ray and streaming video, the idea that porn drives digital innovation became a widely accepted truth.

        Small problem here - the porn industry went all-in on HD-DVD, not Blu-Ray. So let's not oversell the idea.

        • No, but hd-dvd was a stepping stone to Blu-Ray anyway. The only reason people wanted hd-dvd was because they didn't want to shit-can all the dvd collections they had just invested in, especially if you had a massive vhs collection you where replacing.

          And thats kind of the other side to it to, even with blu vs dvd there is no real benefit to buying one over the other for porn.

      • Check out the Venus of Willendorf, from about 30,000 years ago. It's a fat carved stone statuette, but this was an ice age, so fat was sexy (built-in insulation). I consider it Neolithic porn.

        Note that very few of our ancestors actually lived in caves. Most of them lived in nests, huts, or other temporary shelters. But such outdoor structures don't leave any evidence after tens of thousands of years, and caves do.

        • so fat was sexy (built-in insulation).

          Being fat was attractive, but not for the "built in insulation". The fat meant that a month or two of poor hunting/ gathering results wouldn't mean the pregnancy aborting or the milk drying up through malnutrition.

      • I believe Porn has led the way in leveraging technology in one way or another since the beginning f time.

        I bet the first Cave Art was probably of naked women. but it was erased by someone's mother.

        If you look into primitive art, it is highly unlikely that it is the mothers erasing pictures of naked women.

        The two themes most prevalent in primitive art are hunting and motherhood.

        Somebody's mother is more likely to have erased hunting pictures to make room for motherhood pictures, which generally consist of naked women.

        Naked women as porn don't appear in primitive art until the agricultural revolution, when people started living in fixed homes and had leisure time while well fed. Prior to that, leisure

        • Really? What is the earliest art you consider pornography then?

        • Naked women as porn don't appear in primitive art

          Naked women as pornography couldn't appear before the widespread adoption of clothing. And if you can remember wanking over your Dad's collection of National Geographic with the bare-titted "ethnic" photographs, you'll realise that what is considered pornographic (or stimulating) is culturally variable.

          the agricultural revolution, when people started living in fixed homes and had leisure time while well fed.

          The evidence is pretty clear that the adoption of ag

          • You start off with the claim, (paraphrased) "1 can't equal 1, because you didn't count to 0 yet."

            It gets dumber from there.

            No, I didn't claim that agriculture increased leisure time; I claimed that agriculture increased the amount of leisure time that took place on a full enough stomach that the mind might be thinking of other things than food; and I made a connection between the amount of leisure time that hunter-gatherer's have being connected to their resource access. Which is obvious. And furthermore, a

      • Not really. DVDs have a "multi angle" feature that was just begging to be used by porn, but AFAIK, nobody used that feature, not even porn. If any feature was meant for porn, that was it.

      • I bet the first Cave Art was probably of naked women. but it was erased by someone's mother.

        What do you think all those "venus figurines" are? It's all just wank material, stone-age copies of Penthouse to enjoy in private at the back of the cave.

    • I was explaining this to my wife.

      I remember the stir cassette tapes caused where the content went something like, "Baby, oh baby! Do me real good, baby!"

      There was VHS, as mentioned in TFS.

      When camcorders came out, who didn't record home porn?

      Digital cameras made nude selfies a given.

      Then there was usenet where we had to stitch the binary photos using some goddam program I forget the name of. (Help me out here.)

      I showed her the blurbs about remote sex toys and she was all like, "OMG!"

      I said, "Look: You know

      • I was explaining this to my wife. ...
        Pornographic VR must be nice.

        You might want to start talking to your wife about augmented reality porn now, and the advantages of looking like someone else for your partner while having sex.
        I'm not saying that all women want their men looking like like young Brad Pitt... but there would be certain advantages to virtual beer googles.
        Just don't buy the first product whose demo shows a Brad Pitt jumping out of a basketball court. [slashdot.org]

      • VR porn is horrible. Imagine putting the headset on, starting some PoV porn and looking down... why the fuck do I, white nerd, have a huge black dick???

    • Re:Surprise! (Score:4)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @12:04PM (#56935278) Homepage

      The First Real Boom in Virtual Reality? It's Pornography.

      Clearly someone hasn't been paying attention. I believe this gets a "No shit Sherlock."

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by evilbessie ( 873633 )

        Yes tech continues to profit off the objectification of women. It's really surprising they can't get rid of the sexism and misogyny which seems to infect the field.

        All work is coerced. Coerced sex is rape.

        • All work is coerced. Coerced sex is rape.

          Fractured logic detected. Your brain must hurt.

        • Yes tech continues to profit off the objectification of women

          It's what guys do...it is how we are wired.

          I'll lay money down on it, that no guy in history, walked into a bar (cave, parlor, you name the place), looked across the room and commented..."Boy, I bet she can carry on a great conversation!!"

          The first thing a guy sees in a woman, is if he'd like to fuck her or not.

          Its pretty simple. There doesn't have to be love or emotion involved in it. Sure, it can be there too, but it isn't a requirement to

          • Sorry you can't comprehend that you're not brain damaged because you're a man, you're brain damaged because you were fed machismo pap as a child, and internalized it.

            Real men don't have to dehumanize women in order to forgive themselves for not having a giant cock. And real men don't have to blame women for their lack of valuable communication, because they are in fact able to communicate with women, and do get value out of the interactions.

            You're right that it is pretty simple, though.

            • Sorry you can't comprehend that you're not brain damaged because you're a man, you're brain damaged because you were fed machismo pap as a child, and internalized it.

              Real men don't have to dehumanize women in order to forgive themselves for not having a giant cock. And real men don't have to blame women for their lack of valuable communication, because they are in fact able to communicate with women, and do get value out of the interactions.

              You're right that it is pretty simple, though.

              Hmm...not sure w

        • ...Are why we replace you with porn.

          Get over it.

        • All work is coerced. Coerced sex is rape.

          I wish you could tell that to the original feminists, the 19th century Madams of the American West and the other 'painted ladies' of the era who became influential to the point of earning the right to vote even before the 19th amendment was ratified.

          Prohibitionists like yourself want to remove agency from women, limiting their choices in gainful employment, as well as stigmatize the role of sex workers. It's toxic feminism at its worst.

        • Yes. Men like sex. I had never realised this until you pointed it out.

          All work is coerced. Coerced sex is rape.

          Yay! SWERFs! I guess I don't have autonomy over my own body then.

          • I don't care what you do. I don't think men should be able to buy women as objects, don't think you can separate the sexism. Punish the people buying not those selling. While the top end of the market might be nice, the bottom end, is very much a bad place for women. If it is allowed to exist profiteers will exploit all price points. You can't on the one hand want men to understand consent and on the other hand be in favour of an industry which removes consent from the equation. Money is not consent. Those

            • Well, I'm not a woman. Are men allowed to buy me as an object? I'm fine with it. They seem willing to pay. You seem to be an interfering prude.

              Do you object to paid surrogacy as well?

              • You seem to think that men should have a right to sex. So we differ there too. I too am a man, I'd like other men to up their game a bit, male violence is something not discussed enough amongst men. I don't think you can reduce male violence by being OK with violence against women (quite a lot of porn titles are extremely rapey, if that's the experience men are getting of sex what does that do to personal relationships?)

                If society wants to tackle male violence then you also have to look at the rape culture

                • You seem to be projecting your sexual prejudice on me. I have no idea why you believe I think men have a right to sex, or what incels have to do with this. This comes across as anti-male, anti-sex rhetoric using feminist talking points to obscure the general puritanism behind it.

                  "Rape culture" is a curious term. I am under the impression that rape is illegal. Is this not the case? I also rather get the impression allegations can destroy the careers of people. Rape is considered one of the most heinous cr

                  • Being as there is much movement to stop the red light district in Amsterdam, because even the regulated markets are bad for women. It's not anti-male (I am male myself) it's trying to make men better. You may think that men are fine, but metoo has shown that on average men suck. You can either try to make men better and call out shitty behaviour in men or you can be part of the problem.

                    Go and look at porn titles and see if there is any words implying coercion or rape (drunk, brutalised, pain etc.). I think

                    • Being male doesn't mean that you're immune from regurgitating anti-male rhetoric.

                      Seems that criminalising prostitution doesn't really help that much. And while there are claims that legalisation of prostitution has enlarged the market, that seems to be a problem for the puritanical types who feel this is inherently bad. Evidence seems to also suggest that this "failed experiment" Reduces sexual violence [huffingtonpost.com].

                      Your proposal appears to be a war on prostitution. Essentially I can't see this as being any differen

                    • It's not anti-male (I am male myself)

                      With a name like "evilbessie". Hmm...

                    • Pah it just lost my comment.

                      I do suggest you listen to some women and radical feminists for their views, listening hurts no one and the world is a better place when people with divergent views can share them openly without fear. Most of the radical feminists I've met seem welcoming enough if you can manage polite conversation.

                      https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep... [ons.gov.uk]
                      https://www.theguardian.com/so... [theguardian.com]
                      https://nordicmodelnow.org/201... [nordicmodelnow.org]

                      It is not 'violence against women', it is 'Male Violence against women', there is a s

                • If society wants to tackle male violence

                  ... stop electing people with their brains in their pricks to political power.

                  For which task, you'll have to persuade a significant majority of the voting population. Which you won't do by sitting in your nerd-cave typing on your laptop.

      • The whole drive for faster modems, bigger hard drives, bigger monitors; all these were driven by the BBS's with huge porn archives.

        I remember downloading Claudia Schffer GIF's at 300 baud; good days, lol!

        Hopefully, I'll be able to Amazon a fully functional BSG #6 before I die; I probably won't last a week after that. :)

    • Yeppers. People have been saying for decades that porn would be VR's first killer app.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • EXACTLY! Porn has looooooong been the driver in tech advances over the decades - - how can this not be understood????

    • I don't know about 30 years, the first one I saw was no earlier than 1994.

      But, a long time.

  • Were you trying to say that when VR experiences its first real boom, it'll be porn?? Regardless... that "boom" will have to come first, msmash... something to do with causality.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • You've obviously never had a porn site advertising AI think you were Japanese, or you'd know that the boom started years ago.

      Maybe it would help to explain to you that they're often euphemistically called "dating games."

      I remember one of my classmates getting kicked out of the computer lab for playing one after school. That was on an Apple ][ in the 80s. Pre-boom, to be sure.

  • VR porn might well be the ONLY porn people pay for (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @10:33AM (#56934650)

    Every other kind of porn that you could possibly think of you can get for free on the internet. There's literally an endless amount of people very willing to shag in front of cameras and put that online, who'd pay for something like that?

    The only way you could get people to pay for porn anymore is if you can produce some where the production cost is higher than, well, a home video camera and a broadband connection.

    • It used to be that if you wanted video porn you had to pay for that too, but eventually it became plentiful and cheap. My understanding is that the people who put it online charge for live shows or have crowd-funding setups, so it's not as though all of them are doing this for free. If that's your model, it makes sense to just give away the old stuff since anyone who stumbles on it might be swayed to become a paying customer. The individual odds are low, but if you can get 250,000 eyeballs, a .1% conversion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dj245 ( 732906 )

      Every other kind of porn that you could possibly think of you can get for free on the internet. There's literally an endless amount of people very willing to shag in front of cameras and put that online, who'd pay for something like that?

      The only way you could get people to pay for porn anymore is if you can produce some where the production cost is higher than, well, a home video camera and a broadband connection.

      As you mention, there is a big difference between 4k shot from multiple angles, in good lighting, and amateur home videos.

      In addition, there are plenty of niche genres where there are not a lot of free videos out there. Not everybody knows how to pirate, and pirating relies on someone uploading the content, which may not be the case for many niche genres.

      Speaking for a friend, of course.

  • VR is at a sad state (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I fell into the VR trap and bought an Oculus Rift after a demo. I was really excited and my computer a big beast i7 with a 1080ti was more than up to the task.

    Then I noticed all the garbage content and the crap resolution of the headset and it's complete inability to support users that wear glasses. It's certainly a neat idea but the high frame rate requirement to prevent the nausea factor makes the content just looks like garbage. 4k gaming just looks a million times better and on a big display is just

    • Which is why porn is leading the pack. You don't necessarily want mind blistering detail. They're not moving *all* that fast. Content is, more or less by definition, 'immersive'.

      What's not to like?

      Well, not going there....

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rande ( 255599 )

      It's like the Channel Tunnel. It'll bankrupt lots of companies who try to do it, but eventually it'll get there.

    • The Vive works just fine with glasses, and the room scale "holodeck" experience can be quite compelling. I play with the sets at my local university from time to time (a buddy of mine runs a technology outreach program)

      Have yet to see enough compelling content to justify the $2k+ outlay for the VR gear and a computer powerful enough to drive it myself, but I'm eagerly watching falling prices and improving technology and content , waiting for the right moment to buy in.

      Actually though, from what I can find,

    • Yea, I had to buy a set of contacts so I can use my rift, makes it a pain in the ass to use, but it is worth it when I do.
  • Pornography is 80% of the reason this technology even exists.
  • I always thought my thesis would be on how every advancement of communications technology has been driven by porn. VR, internet, VCR...all porn. That "ancient fertility statue"? Porn.

  • But, I can't read the articles.

    Because they're paywalled.

    Kind of like the VR content that seems to be driving the industry.

  • Well yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BronsCon ( 927697 ) <social@bronstrup.com> on Thursday July 12, 2018 @11:17AM (#56934940) Journal
    It was gonna be either that or war.

  • Nope (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @11:19AM (#56934946)

    After adult content helped popularize new media formats like VHS, Blu-ray and streaming video

    The PS3 is what made BluRay a success. Porn backed HD-DVD initially.

    • Different companies went different ways. But... Porn had a lot to do with initial video formats on the web. As a general rule, humans like sex- Doing, watching, reading about it, talking and writing about it, most seek it in some fashion. Given it's critical role in keeping the species going, it makes sense that those who seek it more reproduced more successfully. So it makes sense that it drives technology only slightly less than survival (a.k.a. combat). It's unfortunate, but hard to deny.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Why? Was BR too expensive for porn or something?

      • Why? Was BR too expensive for porn or something?

        No, in the early days the consortium was actually very picky in terms of content. The Blu-Ray Disc Association actively fought against Porn becoming the main selling point of Blu-Ray. It wasn't until it looked like the BDA was actually going to lose the war that things such as allowing computer based players, allowing free content movement etc actually started happening. This also coincided with the start of crap content. Ultimately Blue-Ray won and the industry had to change after essentially being forced

    • Adult content producers do tend to try out every new technology or media format, they don't however tend to have any actual impact on the success of said technology/format. BluRay vs HD-DVD was one data point proving that, the other is the failure of 3D TVs despite the porn industry's support for the 3D format.

  • This is the same thing that happened in the VHS:Betamax battle back in the '80s. Once the porn industry picks a VR hardware and interface format and standardizes on it that combo will become the most popular HW/interface on the market, quality be Damned.

    I just hope they go with the best quality choice this time, VHS was an inferior format to Betamax but Beta still lost out. Anther nail in the Beta coffin was cost, though Beta did continue to serve the TV industry very well until HD-digital came on the scen

  • VR is really really great... (Score:5, Funny)

    by voss ( 52565 ) on Thursday July 12, 2018 @11:26AM (#56934992)

    FOR PORN...

    I have fiber optic so I dont have to wait

    FOR PORN

    Theres always some new app

    FOR PORN

    vr looks so real

    FOR PORN

    Its a miracle of 3d graphics

    FOR PORN

    VR is for Porn, VR is for porn
    Why do you think VR was born
    PORN, PORN, PORN

  • Next no more more SEX (needs to be in a lab) it's safer. Just like in demolition man

  • To the surprise of not one single person, except the idiot who wrote this article who is apparently utterly ignorant of how the web got started in 94.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • It's a matter of simple fact that EVERY technological development in imagery is first used for porn. Portraiture. Sculpture. Photography. Digital imagery; the ubiquitous GIF format was originally designed to allow any computer OS to be able to view any picture. Video; at one point, half of the video tapes in the world were porn. You could even rent a VCR and a handful of videos and view the in the privacy of your own home.

    Why would VR or AR be any different?

  • Pr0n has led the way for most media storage and presentation technologies over the years.

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