Published in VR-Intelligence

Todd Glider is the CEO of the CMP Group, an online venture founded in the US in 2005. One of their most successful brands is BaDoinkVR, is a pioneer in the virtual reality space.

How did you get involved with VR?

BaDoinkVR went live in July 2015. The impetus to our drive toward VR adoption was experiencing Google Cardboard. At the very beginning of 2015, we had some Cardboard headsets arrive in our office, and we were blown away by the experience VR afforded us.

We thought this might be the next big thing in Adult Entertainment, and really, mass communication, in general. We were fully aware that it was probably going to take years for it to reach maximum density on a global scale. But the difference between what you see in 2D or normal 3D, and what you experience with VR, is so profound that we decided to make it our next big venture.

How big a barrier is getting VR technology into the hands of consumers, and do you think companies are doing enough to overcome it?

There are many companies doing a great deal to get the message out, and I’m always encouraged by the amount of press that Virtual Reality is getting. There just needs to be more and more of it.

The challenge is getting the point across to consumers who’ve not experienced VR yet, to explain just how revolutionary VR is from an entertainment perspective without experiencing it. You can’t experience it without Cardboard or Samsung GearVR or any of the headsets that are out there today.

It’s similar to trying to convey how delicious pizza is when the person you’re talking to has never tasted mozzarella: all you can say is how great it is, but they have to take that first bite to really understand.

Do you think the difficulty with explaining how good VR will hold it back?

The difficulty in getting the message across is certainly a challenge, but I don’t think it’s going to prevent VR from blowing up. There are so many companies that have invested literally billions of dollars in this new technology. You’re going to see more and more messaging, giveaways and promotions that are aimed at overcoming that issue – getting the goggles in people’s hands… giving them the chance to experience it.

On the one hand you could argue that it’s going to be difficult. When you compare it to HD. When HD was beginning to get big, people didn’t know what it was. People heard about HD as this new way of watching TV, but the only way to experience it was to go into your retail store and see the difference for yourself. Of course, you saw the difference immediately, and then you wanted to go and get one of those televisions.

In direct contrast to that, with VR you have this really mad rush of people online pushing it. There are many Virtual Reality evangelists, so many of these goggle giveaways occurring, whether that’s for Google Cardboard or Samsung GearVR or any of the other lower end headsets.

Two weeks ago, the biggest VR news story was our partnership with Pornhub. I don’t know what it’s going to be next week, but every week it seems – and really, every day – there is something new happening in Virtual Reality. Whether that’s a start-up introducing their product to a small group of people at a meetup or if it’s a company like Facebook or Google making waves.

The issue of messaging – of how to explain to people who have never tried it just what VR is capable of – and of getting headsets into the hands of consumers is being addressed by so many industries.

 What impact does that mass of messaging have on VR generally?

Every week something happens in VR, and every week, whether it’s related to the Adult Entertainment industry or not, it has an effect on the amount of traffic that comes to BaDoinkVR and the amount of subscriptions that we get. With almost every VR announcement and development our traffic spikes, then plateaus – but it’s always getting higher and higher.

When the consumer version of the Samsung GearVR hit the market we saw an immediate uptick in traffic. Obviously, Samsung didn’t announce or talk about anything Adult Entertainment related, but at the end of the day if you’ve got something that’s going to give you a visual experience, one of your first questions is “Can I watch porn on it?”

You gave away 10,000 headsets yourselves, how quickly did they all go?

Within minutes. It was ridiculously quick. I don’t think this was just because we were giving away something for free; I think VR has an awful lot to do with that. A lot of people have heard of VR now and are like, “Oh, you’re going to give me the opportunity to experience it free!? Great.” There are plenty of sites out there that are based on giving away all kinds of free stuff, but I don’t think they’re blowing through their entire inventory in less than an hour or two like we did.

It has been said that porn has pushed consumer tech forward in the past. How big a part do you think Adult Entertainment will play in widespread VR adoption?

I think it’s enormous. There are a few different ways in which we are having an impact. Firstly, we actually have a business model, which can’t be said for a lot of the VR entrepreneurs right now. There’s a lot of people doing some gloriously amazing stuff, but they’re not making money off it.

My point isn’t to gloat about the fact that we’re making money. The fact is that by making money through VR, it allows us to produce so much more content. We’re shooting new content every month, at a minimum, four new scenes a month. We’ve already created 65 or 70 videos.

As part of that continuous creation of content, we are constantly improving our shooting styles. We’re constantly improving the way we work with the performers to get them to perform for the VR cameras, which is a different kind of performance.

Equally as important is the fact that we have a walled garden. As a consumer you come to BaDoinkVR, you subscribe and then you have access to all the content within our walled garden. As a result, we have the opportunity to engage with the consumer over a long span of time.

Our users don’t come to our site, watch a video, leave a comment and then never return. Our subscribers come to our site and engage with us. We have the opportunity to continually touch base with our subscribers to find out what they like; what they don’t like; how their tastes evolve relative to VR.

There isn’t really anything out there where you get that level of insight into the user experience. Our users are very vocal. We talk to them via our feedback forum in the BaDoinkVR members’ area, also on Reddit. So much of what the consumer wants, what the consumer likes and dislikes, what they are excited about or not excited about: we’re hearing that first hand. We have had lengthy meetings with our production team as a result of the feedback we get. We make new creative decisions based directly on feedback.

The VR revolution that’s happening right now is very much being crowd-sourced, and there are no protocols. I can’t give you a list right now that says how to shoot VR effectively. You wouldn’t be able to do it right off the bat because it takes a lot of experimentation. No cookie cutters have been made yet.

Because we have a business model, we are able to invest in the newest technology for VR; the newest cameras; the newest kit. We also have a direct line to the consumer. For this whole VR thing to take hold, the consumer has to be very much involved, and consumer feedback in enormously valuable.

Has the creation of specific VR content changed the rules of content creation entirely, or is it just a case of shooting traditional content using new technology?

VR requires a different set of rules. Within our industry, in a 2D shoot you’ll have lots of shots. The crew will shoot for two minutes then cut, reposition the camera and shoot again. With VR the shots are a lot longer. It’s almost like one 20-minute long take. That requires rehearsal.

Because VR is so new, we tend to focus on what is called POV – Point of View. That gives the user the sensation of being an intrinsic part of the scene. Whatever the starlet is doing on camera, she is doing to you. That isn’t new. POV porn has been around for years on the 2D side, but because one has the feeling of being inside the screen, it makes POV much more intense, much more palpable.

A lot of the VR you see being shot right now is shot like that, and that is largely because right now VR is so new that what you’re trying to do is get the users to understand just what immersion is. The easiest and most effective way to do that is from a Point of View perspective.

Another consideration during a shoot is audio. VR audio adds to the whole immersive nature of the presentation. The effect is that not only do you see different parts of the scene by moving your head around, but as you move your head the sound changes to match the position of your ears in comparison to the content. That’s something else you have to account for when shooting VR.

Are the production costs of shooting VR much higher than traditional content?

They’re about double. It’s not so much the equipment that has driven the cost up as it is the post production process. The post production process is more time-consuming.

 With traditional content you have a set with a crew behind the camera. Now with the ability for 360 degree video, how do you handle that?

They’ve got to be mic’ed. They can’t be in the same room. What we’re doing is setting up a mic system for the crew to communicate with the people on camera, or you ensure that everybody understands what they have to do so that you don’t have to communicate with them at all, then you clear the room. The only thing left in there is the camera and the performers.

Looking forward, how big do you think VR is going to get and how do you think the market will be split between mobile VR and True VR?

I think it’s going to get extremely big. Once people experience VR, it’s hard to forget, it’s hard to ‘go back.’ But it is going to take a number of years. It’s going to take quite a while for people to really embrace VR to the point that it moves beyond a niche.

Mass adoption of VR will happen, and mobile will lead the charge for quite some time. For all of the great products that are coming out this year and perhaps next year too, Google Cardboard is going to rule just because it’s affordable. It’s a device that everybody can try without outlaying much money—even if you’re talking about a product like GearVR or whatever Apple comes up with. It’s a lot more affordable than that new desktop machine you’re going to need for Oculus Rift or HTC Vive.

Unless you’re a gamer, you won’t have one of these desktop machines, let alone the headset. So it’s going to take a while for that to happen.

The big thing that’s going to increase the amount of uptake of the highest end products as well as benefit the mobile is eye tracking technology. Eye tracking technology allows the headset to follow where your eyes move – not just your head, but your eyes.

If you can follow somebody’s eyes within the head-mounted display then you don’t need to display the entire image in High Definition or 4K. In real life when we look at something, things in the periphery are not crystal clear; they’re soft. If you’ve got eye tracking software in place, you don’t have to show a huge display that’s all 4K; it can just be the area that’s being looked at.

What that allows you to do it to massively decrease the demands on processing power. So once that happens, the cost for the hardware required to appreciate VR immersion will drop precipitously.