VANCOUVER — Pornhub’s inaugural awards show is set to be the world’s most technologically advanced and globally accessible event, delivering a pair of breakthroughs by combining live VR streaming with a massively multiuser VR world.
According to the company, it is throwing the entire weight of its network behind the September 6 show that it hopes will ignite the virtual reality revolution.
“While VR has had a tough time gaining traction with consumers, this muscular push by Pornhub to further expand its role as the world leader in content delivery may finally change all that,” explains a company spokesperson. “The streaming clip giant will be dedicating its front page to a multi-hour awards show that will encourage users to interact with the world’s top porn stars in virtual reality.”
Not only will viewers be able to watch the show in real time from their choice of four different 360-degree positions (including one backstage location, creating a virtual backstage pass), but anyone with a computer powered headset such as the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift will be able to actually attend the show in a massively multiuser social VR replica.
“This is the first ever event where hundreds of thousands of VR users can come together and interact with each other and with the porn stars in such a futuristic way,” says Brian Shuster, executive producer of the Pornhub Awards Show. “The platform, Oasis.game, is the product of more than 15 years of development and more than $50 million of investment. It is a system designed to usher in a new era of virtual reality, and this awards show is how we have chosen to launch this platform to the public.”
The red-carpet VR broadcast starts at 5 p.m. PDT while the Pornhub Awards Show will begin at 7:30 p.m., with an expected 500 performers in attendance. The event will showcase multiple technological breakthroughs by broadcasting four simultaneous live 360-degree streams of the show, where until now, broadcasting even a single live 360-degree stream has proven virtually impossible.
To accomplish this feat, the show has engaged premier VR studio HoloFilm Productions.
“With more than 30 patents on technologies that we’ve developed for virtual reality,” says HoloFilm Productions’ President Anna Lee, “we are confident in our ability to deliver this groundbreaking video component to the tens of millions of viewers that are expected to watch the show.”
Lee notes the hosting of a computer-generated replica of the Belasco Theater that is capable of holding thousands of simultaneous VR avatars from around the world is an entirely different challenge, which was solved by turning to Utherverse Digital’s Oasis platform, which debuted earlier this month.
“The experience for VR users within the Oasis will be like something straight out of science fiction. It will look and feel like players are actually at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles, mingling with each other and with the award-winning porn stars,” Shuster concludes. “This will finally deliver what virtual reality has been promising for so many years.”
For more information about the Pornhub Awards, categories and nominees, click here.
