A talk about virtual reality adult entertainment with PornFoxVR founder

Some days ago I was contacted by Jeff Artik, that wanted to talk me about his VR porn website (NSFW link, of course), PornFoxVR.

I was a bit “scared” at first to check his website, not because porn scares me (at most has made me blind :D), but because usually porn websites come with all kind of malwares, pop-up windows coming from everywhere, fancy banners with girls that are at 3km from me that are super-interested in loving me and so on.

He assured me that his website is clean, so I gave it a try and I sincerely liked its elegant and sleek design. Furthermore there were no pop-ups and no banners! (so, no more girls within 3km that are fallen in love with me? I feel so lonely now…). He got my interest, so I exchanged some e-mails with him. The following are some questions I’ve made him, with his answers… and my commentary.

Why have you decided to start an adult entertainment website?

I come from video game business. From my young age, i dreamt about Virtual Reality. Now that I’m adult, I still like video games, but also porn. I simply merged this two ideas, and tried to create a website that I would love to browse if I was a user.

Well, now that I’m adult, I’ve become a developer… things are very different from one person and another… maybe I’ve chosen the wrong job!

Why is your website different from the others?

We have Premium access. Means that we host hundreds of full videos from various producers, with a single account. We also offer free VR porn videos, and finally we were the first in VR porn business to offer live streaming, since beginning of 2016.

So, no advertisement business. Hope he’ll continue this way.

Do you also shoot videos?

We started in 2015, with our own player. To make it short, we produce, shoot, have our own RIG, shoot for others, stream, host, marketing … everything from A to Z.

This surely got my interest. Setting up a streaming website can be easy, but also dealing with all the production is surely difficult.

There’s people thinking that porn will be a great driver for virtual reality sales. Do you agree or you think that no one will spend hundreds of dollars only for porn?

Porn industry is always a step before the others. But it’s also dangerous, because TV3D was a bad investment, and porn industry jumped on it to lose a lot of money. But from a personal point of view: VR will be in all houses like ipad could be in the coming 10 years. VR technologies are still at an early stage, but FOV (angle of view) and screen resolution will be improved really soon, but not only for porn. Imagine yourself talking to your friend in another country like if he was sit just in front of you. Or let’s follow a cooking curse live in VR! You’ll become a perfect chef, thanks to VR.

Yes, we all know that VR will be huge. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have opened this blog. I liked a lot his comparison with TV3D, since this, along the one with 3D printer, is the comparison that people just use to show that VR will be a fad. Unluckily, as Gabe Newell pointed out in a super-interesting recent interview, we can’t predict what technology will succeed. For example, Wii seemed the future of human-computer interaction, but it died quite soon. I personally think that *R technologies will succeed and are here to stay. Of course porn industry detected immediately the potential of this tech and is trying to exploit it.

He didn’t answer completely to my question, but I think that the answer is that while no-one would ever buy a Vive just to see adult videos, spending 20$ for a Cardboard could surely be an option.. so, yes, adult world could be a driver for low-cost headsets. But it suffers from the same problem of all other VR experiences: you have to try it, or you don’t get what “presence” truly mean… so the adult world needs some kind of “porn evangelist” to spread the word.

How do you envision the future of VR porn?

Limitless. All situations you always dreamt about will be right in front of you.

Yes, but the present is quite rough… that’s why I made the next question…

I think that the tech used for shooting porn has not evolved that much: there are still too much distortions in the videos… when will this be improved?

Actual shootings are made with homemade rigs. Most of producers (it’s also our case) are shooting with GoPro and 180° lens. Everything must evolve at the same time. Companies like Lucid Cam are working on an “all in one” ready to shoot VR camera. Others will follow soon, and it will be easier for non professionals to shoot VR content.

This really surprised me: all VR adult movies are made with homemade setups, that’s why the results are so distorted (If you haven’t ever seen a VR adult video: we have not absolutely the quality of Jaunt at the moment… visuals are good if you look in front of you, but the more you look far from the center, the more the images are distorted). So, even here we’re just at the true beginning of this technology, when everyone crafts his tools with glue and duct tape.

Recently I also read on RoadToVR about a new revolutionary rig that should improve everything, from visuals to audio of the scene. Audio is used a lot in adult movies, with girls whispering in your ears to trigger some kind of neural reactions known as ASMR… so it will be as important as video in the future.

Can you explain to my readers how a VR porn is shooted?

Two GoPro with 180° optical lens. Both cameras sould be separated of 6.4cm.

He kindly provided me a photo about one of the rigs.

I’ve also found this youtube NSFW video showing how adult videos are shoot (NOTICE… it is NSFW-ish… so open it only if you’re safe in seeing it). From it you can discover that videos are shoot with the male actor sit on a couch, with a stereo camera rig just above his head and he has to stay still while “everything” happens on him. This is necessary so that when the user watches the video, should see below him a male body exactly seated as him, to increase the illusion of presence. From this, a question arises in me:

Is it not a “cruelty” the shooting of VR porn for the male actor? He has to stay still… and then he doesn’t exist anymore, he’s just a toy body…. will be still important the talent of a male actor? As an Italian, I’m thinking about the nastiness of Rocco Siffredi, for instance

I love Italy! Anyway. the problem is: the more the actor moves or talks, the more the immersion is lost. So yes, he is, but could be good to be a toy sometimes, isn’t it ? 😉

Terrible, just terrible for us men. The fact that the male actor should not move or talk seems like a torture to me… and the fact that he becomes just a body that the spectator sees under himself makes the actor almost useless. Sincerely, VR can be a game changer even for how adult performers make their job and how much they’re important. If a man is just a body, one becomes almost equal to the other… could they be substituted soon by robots?

What about AR porn? Why it does not exist?

Also could be amazing, but it will depends of the devices. What I saw with Hololens disappointed me a bit. The size of the screen is not bigger than a window in real world. We’re far to see wide angle integration. Too early for me at this moment.

Yes, I’ve already highlighted some issues here. Furthermore I’d add that there is no market, since HoloLens costs 3000$ and it is owned only by big companies, researchers and innovators and these are not the kind of people that spend their time watching porn (I mean, they use HoloLens in their offices… it wouldn’t be great to watch porn in the office, unless your boss is Ela Darling)

Anything more to add to the readers?

I really believe that VR will be part of our lifestyle. It’s the beginning and it’s already crazy. So let’s have a look on PornfoxVR, and let us know if there is anything we can improve on the website, or meet us at the European Summit, we’re giving conference http://www.theeuropeansummit.com/speaker/info/338/

Hope you liked this interview and that it has given you a better insight of current virtual reality adult world. If you have any more questions about this world, write them in the comments section or ask Jeff directly!