Greetings again from the AVN 2016 Adult Entertainment Expo, where I had the chance to visit a virtual-reality strip club and a virtual orgy, courtesy of Holodexxx and HoloGirlsVR. The two companies, both relatively new, offer quite different versions of virtual reality.
With HoloGirlsVR, users can download videos to a headset such as Oculus Rift or Samsung Gear or to their smartphones. Phones can then be used in conjunction with an inexpensive cardboard headset made by HoloGirlsVR.
The videos feature real human beings doing typical porn things while your virtual goggles give you access, either as a bystander or someone in on the action. All of the HoloGirlsVR films—which the company is releasing at a rate of about one every two weeks—are shot in 180 degrees only, which helps keep files small.
When I put on the HoloGirlsVR headset at the expo yesterday, I was immediately thrust into someone's living room, where they were very vocally having sex in front of me on the couch. I watched them for a few seconds and then turned my head to the left, where another couple was going at it on another couch. Same thing to my right. Everyone was slightly out of focus, but for the most part the picture quality was good. It didn't feel like I was in the room pictured, however, so much as watching a movie on a 180-degree screen.
The next video clip they showed me was a point-of-view one, however, and this seemed much more like what I think people envision when they hear "VR porn." In this instance, I was transported to a bedroom where two women are, evidently, about to suck my dick. (Oh yeah, and I have a dick.)
It's visible, along with the rest of a man's lower torso and legs, giving the illusion that I am in the bed with these women. Despite my new male anatomy, the POV clip seemed more immersive and, thus, sexier.
But there's no moving around in the HoloGirlsVR world. I mean, you could physically move around, but it wouldn't change the nature of what you see through the headset.
In contrast, Holodexxx's virtual worlds are shot in 360 degrees and allow users to move about within them. But the other "people" in the world—or at least the one I tried out yesterday—are digitally created.
Holodexxx's plan is to sell the software for these virtual worlds, which can be used in conjunction with a headset like Oculus Rift. At the expo, guests could try it out using an array of gear that included a VR headset, headphones, and two wand-like controls.
When the Holodexxx video kicks on, I am in an empty strip club, with a bikini-clad hologram shaking her butt right in front of me. She has short, dark hair, but if I turn to the right I can choose to make it longer or a different color, as well customize the hologram-stripper's proportions. I touch one button and her butt gets smaller, another and it inflates back up.
To my right, there are options to change what the stripper—let's call her Cindi—is doing. I am not sure what I touch, but suddenly Cindi is writhing about on the floor. I decide to take this opportunity to wander around a bit, and as I do my field of vision shifts like I'm walking around a real room.
I approach Cindi, who is now back to standing up and rump-shaking. I reach out toward her, and virtual hands appear in front of me, apparently my hands. I try to grab Cindi's ass, because there are no rules in this strip club, but my hands just kind of pass right through her. All in all, the Holodexxx VR world is very cool in that 'holy shit' kind of way, but it feels a little too much like playing Wii.
It also reminds me of trying VR at the mall arcade as a kid. This was the 90s, and people really thought VR would become big. It didn't. And I'm still not convinced it will, at least not for porn. The value added just doesn't seem enough to outweigh other concerns, like needing special equipment.
This seems to be a worry among those invested in VR porn. At a Friday panel at the AVN expo, representatives from several VR porn companies discussed the challenge of getting people, especially women, to come around to wearing and watching content on a bulky headset.
Among expo attendees I ask about trying VR porn, most express a mix of mild enthusiasm and some skepticism or hesitation. It was "interesting" and "enjoyable," says Ryan S., a middle-aged man who tried out the HoloGirlsVR set yesterday. But it wasn't "lifelike" in the sense that you felt like you were there—"it felt like up-close TV," he says.
Daniel R., 32, called the experience "surreal," "really cool," and not like anything he'd seen before, and yet "part of the Internet is just how fucking simple it is" to watch porn, he says. "So I don't know if adding gadgets and stuff makes it better. I don't know…" Daneil trails off and then laughs. "But there's one of those guys in every group who will get one. I already know exactly who it is in my group."
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