LOS ANGELES — VRClubz is featured on the cover of ED Magazine’s March edition, which also spotlights the company in an exclusive interview with founder Jimmy Hess and creative director Dan DiLallo.
Hess and DiLallo, known for his work at Activision and on bringing a live event feel to “Guitar Hero,” discussed the breakthrough virtual reality company’s evolution and future with ED Magazine’s Eugenio Torrens.
Hess notes that consumers are changing the ways they enjoy adult entertainment, while technology allows clubs to extend their audiences beyond local visitors to international markets as well.
“The initial goal with the gentlemen’s club industry was to extend their existing business model and complement their international draw.” Hess told Torrens. “People are already coming to visit the clubs locally, regionally, but maybe not internationally. More and more, today’s consumer — your millennials, 20-somethings — they want to experience as much as they can. They want to visit places and see things, but they want it now. Technology is leading itself to be able to create that experience and bring it to them.”
For his part, DiLallo says video gaming techniques can apply to many industries, including gentlemens’ clubs.
“Every business is almost using game development inside their line of work, whether it’s for marketing techniques, gamification techniques, or application-based,” DiLallo told Torrens. “Every brand, when it comes to marketing’s purpose, is to tell a great story about their brand or what their experience offers. It’s all about storytelling. The most powerful engines to tell stories are game engines. If you are an industry that has a brand and you want to tell a story, game development can help you.”
The rapid advance of technology is keeping the team on its toes, with expansion into augmented reality (AR) and other initiatives on the drawing board, as they seek to build the brands of today’s most tech-forward clubs.
“Our society right now is hellbent on the next new tech and how it’s utilized and how it’s incorporated; to that end, VR extends clubs’ brands. It opens their club 24/7 with unlimited seats. They monetize their assets and with VR, there are no geographical borders. They’re reaching a huge audience that can’t reach them physically, but can reach them virtually,” DiLallo concludes. “We’re not coming in to be a competitor, we’re here to help club owners.”
To read the full interview, click here.
