LOS ANGELES — As the adult entertainment industry embraces a virtual future, consumers are now getting their first glimpse of sexual freedom’s new reality.
At the recent XBIZ 360 event in Hollywood, a number of presentations featured the Oculus Rift device, which while receiving much attention, has been beaten to market by rival products from Samsung and Sony — with porn now making its first inroads on to the Samsung Gear VR platform (which is powered by Oculus), to the delight of some early viewers.
With porn frowned upon in South Korea, it is unlikely that this was a key market for Samsung, but as Chris Chavez wrote for Phandroid.com, “If history has taught us anything, give any new technology enough time and someone will eventually throw some good ‘ol porn on it.”
Demonstrating consumer’s first reactions to VR porn, Complex Media recently solicited employees who were willing to have their first experience with the new technology filmed for a YouTube video.
Despite some viewer comments seeming subdued, perhaps as a nod to political correctness, female participants were enthusiastic in their appraisal, saying that the technology is a game changer that can “eliminate the need for human interaction altogether.”
Although virtual reality porn is in its early infancy, with few headsets in the hands of actual consumers (rather than developers tinkering with beta gear), content producers are already experimenting with new ways of shooting and editing movies to take advantage of headsets’ 360-degree video capabilities, which some early adopters see as a much more compelling experience than the device’s initial gaming offers.
This process of experimentation with new content types inevitably leads to porn, with some observers believing that the availability of adult entertainment is necessary for the platform’s wider consumer adoption, likening the wave to the uptake of Blu-ray Disc (and VHS before it), which won their respective format wars in part because of porn’s availability on these devices.
Perhaps a repeat of these wars is in store as Oculus’ parent Facebook grapples with Samsung and Sony, Microsoft and others, for a slice of the virtual reality pie — with companies that embrace more open technologies such as Android, having a more “accepting” view towards how these devices are used — while firms such as Facebook, which already restricts porn on its platform, may put its Oculus offer at an Apple-style disadvantage when it comes to acceptable content types.
“Back in 2010, Steve Jobs said that if you’re looking for porn, Android is the best place for you and your insatiable desires,” Chavez noted. “Maybe he wasn’t completely off base.”
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