In its broadest sense, “delivery” is the process of getting your product or service into customers’ hands — a process that takes on familiar tones in the online space, but which is now evolving as the emerging realm of virtual reality takes the stage — bringing with it a range of new considerations.
Recently, XBIZ asked the adult industry’s top virtual reality content producers and service providers how they distribute VR content to maximize audience reach and revenue streams.
Our engineers have worked tirelessly to create an all-encompassing micro-transaction system. Members to VixenVR and VRClubz can spend Club Cash inside the Gold Club San Francisco Experience by means of tipping and buy private dances and the game communicates with our website. -Jimmy Hess, VixenVR
Here’s what they had to say:
One obvious VR delivery platform is the traditional members-only subscription-based website, commonly known in adult as a paysite, with Naughty America CIO Ian Paul telling XBIZ that the company primarily distributes VR content on a subscription basis.
Likewise, Adam from CamasutraVR told XBIZ the company is exploring delivery options and carefully considering a subscription-based platform using a native player on the front end, linked to an online personal profile — but they are not stopping there.
“In order to reach a bigger audience we’re converting our content for AR, mobile and web,” Adam said. “This way, the people that don’t have access to high-end gaming rigs can also enjoy the content.”
For his part, Marc from Simsense Media also plans to start a website with a subscription model.
“I believe the VR market is still small enough that potential customers will eventually find your site with little to no advertising,” Marc revealed. “The consumer base is actively looking for content, so the success of a studio will be attributed to the strength of their content and the quality of their videos, not the size of their affiliate network.”
HoloFilm Productions president Anna Lee said the company makes its content available via a premium member site at HoloGirlsVR.com.
“We also offer VR scenes for individual purchase on GameLink.com and our network has expanded to include BurningAngelVR and KinkVR in the HoloFilm family,” Anna Lee told XBIZ. “Some titles are also available for licensing.”
For some operators, VR initiatives provide motivation for moving beyond the traditional paysite model and subscription sales to pay-per-view and the “clip store” business model, among others.
YourVRPorn.com’s public relations coordinator Piper Blush says the site built a pay-per-clip platform where studios, including its own, can offer individual videos to consumers.
“We are the first such platform to cater exclusively to VR,” Blush told XBIZ, “[This makes] it particularly appealing for studios that wish to expand their revenue stream with smaller scale VR production but do not wish to commit to a full subscription site.”
For another option, VReleased CEO Nicholas Dodge explained the company plans to launch an interactive adult VR game store this summer.
“We streamline the process of finding, buying, downloading and playing adult VR games in a one-stop shop,” Dodge said. “With this, our online distribution platform will be a user-friendly way to view and play adult VR experiences on any major VR device.”
YanksVR CMO Todd Spaits notes that content distribution has changed dramatically from when the company launched its first flat site, Yanks.com, to the launching of the VR version, YanksVR.
“For YanksVR we are working with a variety of quality VR distributors to get eyeballs on our content,” Spaits told XBIZ. “In regards to YanksVR, we are looking at ourselves much more as a premium content studio looking for quality distributors rather than the main distributor of our content through a website such as with Yanks.com. We have also positioned our product to be a premium product, therefore we are very selective about our distributors.”
This leveraging of third-party partners to help create and distribute VR enables a range of companies to quickly ramp up their expertise in this new medium without having to reinvent the wheel.
In addition to having its own website where it delivers direct downloads, Grooby Productions president Steven Grooby told XBIZ the company is working with a number of platforms who want to offer its trans-centric fare, distributing content “by any means necessary,” while watching its growth.
One platform partner is Paradigm Net Media. Company founder Telly clarifies that the service “doesn’t monetize the content it helps to create for production companies [such as Grooby] because content ownership goes directly to the company that hired us.”
Affiliates are also finding a place in the emerging VR ecosystem both on the content and hardware sides, with Reality Lovers CEO Rene Pour telling XBIZ that they use a traditional affiliate program for getting VR product to online markets.
“Webmasters who have their own website and audience interested in our product, join our affiliate program and start spreading information to their users about Reality Lovers through the promotional material we give them. Some of them write reviews, while other webmasters publish video trailers and/or post on their video channels,” Pour explained. “Of course, the quickest way for us to spread the word is through various types of social media. Reality Lovers as a product has channels/pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.”
It is a promotional channel holding great potential especially when leveraged by social media marketing — the modern day version of “word of mouth” advertising.
“We use a classical partnership program and modern SMM-technologies for content distribution,” Alex from TmwVRnet.com told XBIZ, adding, “We also do our best to get closer to our clients and this is why we gather and realize all content requests our clients may have.”
CEO Jean-Claude Artonne said Terpon does very little to distribute its devices “because our clients do such a great job of that for us.”
“By working with Terpon you can cash in on VR cameras and headsets right now, simply by sending people to our site when they are ready to buy a headset,” Artonne explained. “They want to enjoy you in VR, and are willing to buy the Terpon headsets you recommend.”
Even a mainstay of old-school affiliate promotion, the white label, has found a home in the spread of VR.
AliceX CEO Fabian Grey said the company creates white labels of AliceX for its best-performing partners, and allows them to use its one-click user sign up and one-click payment APIs, “which in all cases doubles and sometimes triples revenue.”
CMO Sean Earley told XBIZ that Rocketbike ARVR developed its own VR content platform that it offers as a white label solution.
“We work with partners who want to develop exciting new features, both for their business and their customers. Since we aggregate any form of 2D or VR content and stream it off the web, our customers can maximize both their new VR-based content, as well as their older 2D content, all on the same platform,” Earley explained. “At the moment, we are also in full dev mode on our backend and publishing platform, so our customers will have proper analytics and advertising solutions as well.”
Earley said Rocketbike ARVR is device and platform agnostic, which will be critical in order to avoid the siloed, walled gardens of the leading headset manufacturers and their stores and platforms, noting that “adult content in VR will require an independent but rich platform.”
This richness is echoed by the push made by VR firms both on- and offline to expose porn fans to VR.
“By interconnecting various marketing channels such as offline sales through the means of building a distribution network in sex shops or head shops, we spread public awareness of our product in Europe and in the U.S. market,” Reality Lovers’ Pour told XBIZ. “We utilize PR, social networks, direct marketing campaigns and events focused on winning over new clients and strengthening our market position.”
Pour emphasizes the value of offline sales, noting that Reality Lovers is currently launching a new sales project and would like to sell its VR adult content via both online and offline channels.
“We have prepared various packages that contain our videos as well as devices that enable the user to play the videos in VR. This way we would like to make our product even more accessible for customers,” Pour said. “In July, we will launch the distribution of these Reality Lovers packages in the Czech Republic and Germany — and that is just the beginning!”
This points to the two cornerstones of VR distribution: raising prospect awareness, along with the actual mechanics of delivery to a display device.
Company CEO Daniel Abramovich said that since VRBangers was one of the first to make 360-degree VR adult videos, it has built up a great brand.
“We mostly get our audience from search engines and social networks,” Abramovich confided. “People simply find us through Google when searching for the most popular keywords: ‘VR Porn’ or ‘Virtual Reality Porn.’”
Others leverage existing customers as an audience for new VR offers.
“We created our own program that’s available for download at CAM4.com/VR for Oculus and Vive,” CAM4VR content manager Ela Darling explained. “We utilize a Cardboard distribution platform called Lazeeva as well as SideloadVR for Gear VR users.”
Head of production Xavi Clos says BaDoinkVR is engaged in a wide array of on- and offline promotions.
“Typically we create three minute video trailers for BaDoinkVR and VRcosplayX so users can check out the content before they buy it, as well as various times of the year we will give away a full VR scene [such as at] the end of 2016 where we gave away a free download of ‘Christmas Tree-O’ for the holidays,” Clos told XBIZ. “We work closely with tube sites such as VR Sumo, which specializes in adult VR videos, and, of course, other well-known tubes like Pornhub, with whom we partnered last year on the first-ever free VR porn channel.
“Also, we are constantly engaged with users across all of our social channels from Twitter to Instagram, Facebook and Reddit asking their feedback,” Clos added. “We also have a user forum on BaDoinkVR.com where we get even more great input from our users!”
Finally, some operators are creating innovations in the way consumers pay for product while immersed in the virtual realm as a way of boosting “delivery” of as much VR content to as many fans as possible.
For example, VixenVR CEO Jimmy Hess told XBIZ the company is designing new systems from scratch to make it possible for users to spend money in the VR space.
“Our engineers have worked tirelessly to create an all-encompassing micro-transaction system. Members to VixenVR and VRClubz can spend Club Cash inside the Gold Club San Francisco Experience by means of tipping and buy private dances and the game communicates with our website,” Hess explained, revealing the cross-promotional benefits of his network. “When the user is done hanging out in VRClubz they can bounce over to VixenVR and spend credits on one of our newest offerings in the videos section such as ‘That New Babysitter,’ unlock and then download it to their device.”
Hess believes that a big part of VR adoption is just exposing the masses to it.
“We have developed a unique business model with the Gold Club San Francisco in which we have a VR Arcade of sorts set up inside the actually brick and mortar club so that customers of the world famous venue can experience that ‘WOW!’ moment for the first time. We even offer branded VR headsets for their mobile phone for purchase on premise,” Hess says. “We believe VR is as big as the telephone or television so being an ambassador for it is easy for us.”
It is, in fact, easy to see from the comments above that delivering VR to consumers is not as straightforward as the delivery of past-gen porn, but the nuances are now fueling a new growth market where tactics and tech are playing equal roles.
