Juddre, you're talking my language! Just out of interest, what's your professional background? I don't need names and places, of course. I feel like X Moon, although they've clearly done a great job of attracting the right kinds of people, could really benefit from our help. I feel like we should start our own creative agency, geared towards the more underground 3D porn industry.

Agreed - "Great Sexual Sandbox" sounds like a good beginning for a catchy tagline. Let's put some relevant words and synonyms in a hat, see what happens?
How about; "X Moon Stories - erotic sandbox encounters" (we're giving this stuff away for free here you know. Our agency could implement that for a fraction of the prices that standard NYC/London agencies would charge

It's true that most porn doesn't feature great stories. After all, whenever you feel need to "exercise the strong arm" it's the immediate gratification you're after. I do feel though that adding narrative and some interesting non-linear gameplay would simply lift this IP up to dizzying echelons, in terms of longevity and cult hall-of-fame status. Stop me if you feel that's too wishy-washy but after all, this isn't a linear 1080p .mp4 or a 2D flash game here, this is a full-on, interactive experience with VR support. I feel like complete and utter immersion would be the key for setting the future standard of 3D porn-based games and/or experiences.

In regard to the 'promote now or later' question, I still say strike when the VR iron is still relatively warm. No one I know personally has an Oculus Rift (and a few people I know, even avid mainstream gamers don't even know what it is yet. And before you ask, no, I don't live in a network of underground caves ) - again, that comes down to good marketing. Home VR is still a financial "risk" in the eyes of companies who are toying with the idea of using and promoting it, it's really only the pioneers of this tech and us "clued-in" gamers that realize it's full potential and how strong a hold Home VR (and Home PORN VR) will have on the future, compared to the average person who happens to own an Xbox.

Take this website for example - www.ukflyers.com - I worked with these guys for just 1 year to take them from "6 guys with a few printers, shelling out posters for local nightclubs" right through to designing and producing signage, POS materials and B2B communications for large supermarket chains, airports, hotels and large music venues.

Sorry to disappoint you, I'm just a corporate software architect with a strictly technical education. I've seen a few corporate ventures so I have some idea of the marketing and business side (no real startups though), and I try to understand those things better just in case I'm forced into entrepreneurship at some point. I used to write fantasy short stories as a hobby when I was younger, so the power of well chosen words still resonates with me. I have absolutely no clue about design, aside from some simple usability related rules (like, you know, people should be able to understand what you are selling...). I find brands fascinating - did you know that the developer of Pokemon Go (Niantic) had previously made a very similar game called Ingress? It was a great game by all accounts but had only moderate success. Similarly, Pokemon was a great brand that was languishing under lackluster products. But then they put together the great game with the great brand, and the value of both catapulted into the stratosphere.

I'm not looking for more work at the moment - my current one is quite stressful enough, thank you - but I despair at the missed potential of XStoryPlayer, and I would like to see them succeed. I'm happy to throw around ideas (and catchphrases ), but I don't have time for more than that. I can see that such an agency might work out, however. Although I think you might have a hard time selling the brand, design and story aspects to a largely non-professional audience - people tend not to appreciate them until they have seen the difference they make - but turn-key marketing packages targeted at the game audience (a broad selection of adult game sites, relevant fetish sites, etc.) could be attractive (easy to understand...) and it could be combined with a brand building service that helps the customer to get the maximum benefit of the marketing push, and you could sneak in the brand, story and design aspects that way. However, I'm not sure there are sufficiently many products out there to make such an agency financially viable.

I think a good story enhances the immersion for all users, but it is especially valuable for those that look for something beyond the physical level. E.g. BDSM or romance aspects are enhanced a lot by a good story. Like you said, the reason there is not a good story in most porn is because most people are looking for immediate gratification. VR might make a difference here though, because people are paying a lot of attention to immersion, so the value of a good story is increased. Have you watched one of those VR porn videos where the actress pretends to kiss you (e.g. http://3dpornreviews.com/get-flix-chill ... rlsvr-gfe/)? I expected it to be cheesy, but it works surprisingly well. However, it is still difficult to sell a product based on it having a good story - I don't think it works as a key selling point, because most people don't understand the value before they experience it. A sandbox selling argument would be easier to work with.

I agree that from the VR hype curve point of view one should start promoting as soon as possible. I have a Vive so I haven't tested the XStoryPlayer VR experience, but I suspect it is not very polished, and without hand controller support it is disappointing anyway because you can immediately see how much better it could be. So from my point of view the right time to promote would be when there is Oculus and Vive support, with hand controller support for both. It sounds unlikely that this could happen before v4.0 is ready, hence I think v4.0 timeframe would be the time to promote. There is the risk that the "VR iron" cools down by that time, but I think we are going to see a lot of technical advancement happening on that front, so the hype is going to keep going for some time.

And yes, having a Vive, I definitely think VR is here to stay. I think some kind of gloves (e.g. Manus VR, I bet they are going to get Lighthouse integration soon now that Valve has made it available to third parties) or other hand-and finger-tracking sensors are going to be the next big step and that is going to further improve immersion in porn games. The current Vive reminds me of the early days of internet video when the quality was so bad it was barely useful. Well, it is better than that, but one can clearly see there is room for improvement. Once we have 8K resolution, hand and finger tracking, and a more immersive solution for movement than teleporting has been found, it is going to be truly awesome.

Haha no worries! You just seem to have a good grasp on the business side of thingss and, like you, I'm chomping at the bit to see XSP improve. I'd love to see the interactive possibilities in a prettier engine though, something like Unreal 4 should do it. DX12 and Vulkan seem to be lowering the bar for how easy great graphics can be achieved and although XSP 3.5 looks good, it really could look amazing.

I find it fascinating how fast technology's growing at the moment. I read in a copy of New Scientist (a few years back now) that one day, technology will get us to the point where it would be impossible to tell the difference between real life and VR. Once that happens, it will be like a universal "flick of a switch" that tells us that our reality before was already a simulation to begin with. The mind boggles.

I'm a married man (happily married) and the wife and I enjoy watching porn. Sometimes together but mostly separately (sorry if TMI). Currently, I can pass things like XSP off as a bit of harmless fun in my downtime but I wonder how long it will be before I'm really blurring that line between harmless fun and *actually* cheating on the wife

It sure is a great time to be alive!

Well, XSP could look better, but I would enjoy additional interaction possibilities more. Except of course that screenshots sell, and current graphics does look a little dated in screenshots (compared to some of the competition). As a player of the game, I would prefer more interaction, but from the point of view of selling more, improving the graphics might indeed be more important.

Technology is indeed advancing quickly - exponentially, some would say - but I still think we are not going to see VR indistinguishable from real life during our lifetimes. Sight and hearing, sure, but getting all the other senses to work (touch, smell, and taste) would require some kind of brain interface, and getting that to work will take a while. Anyway, I wouldn't worry, as long as you don't start preferring the virtual girls to the real one that you married. That will happen to people eventually, by the way - the virtual partners (or robots) will be too perfect for real humans to compete with. Sex between real people might become an amusing rarity like people listening to LPs. But again, not during our lifetimes. Not too sure whether I regret that or not.

It is indeed a great time to be alive, but despite the recent speed of technological development, I'm so impatient for things to mature - VR, automatic cars, commercial space travel... I'm a long-time science-fiction fan, and finally the future is here... almost.

But I think it's simply a matter of personal economics: if you can have it for free, the better. I've visited some of the best erotic porn sites with lots of sexy games, and honestly the paid ones don't give me much more than the free ones, and they also cost quite a lot having a lot of monthly subscriptions, so why pay, I enjoy when I need it for free.