This year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), held in L.A.'s Convention Center, delivered the expected sensory overload. It was all about loud noises, bright colors, and scantily clad booth bims rubbing shoulders with gray-haired, besuited moneymen and scraggly dweeb fanboys – a happy mélange of Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome, high technology, and Capitalism.
But more important than the hoopla, E3 also delivered important lessons in demographics. The videogame world is where the hearts and eyeballs of the Gen-X and Gen-Y consumer live, and videogame companies design their content to hold onto that loyalty. When these 18-34-year-old men aren't blowing shit up on Counterstrike, they're perusing adult Websites.
Lesson 1: Nobody Wants Watered-Down Content
If there was one word to sum up the games at E3 was, it was "explicit." Whether it was the fighting games that showed lovingly-rendered flashes of the actual bone-breaks associated with ultra-violence (Fight Club) or shooting games where the entire environment becomes customized depending on the number of rounds you pump into it, gamers want to see everything.
The same attitude applies to porn, obviously, and explains the proliferation of extreme content. Bikini sites, while a hit with some fans, just aren't enough for the newer breed of consumer. It should be obvious to those of you in the porn world: If you start half-assing the content, your customers will respond with a resounding "meh."
Lesson 2: People Like Free Samples
There's a lot of talk lately on XXX message boards suggesting that Webmasters are giving away too much content, so customers are becoming less likely to pony up the credit card numbers. Bullshit. Show people some of what you have, and they'll pay to see the rest of it. Game manufacturers have been using this almost-viral marketing scheme for years, and it's common practice to offer extensive demo versions of PC games for free download.
These fully playable games might represent as much as a third of the actual size of a complete game, resulting in several hours of enjoyment for players, and an almost rabid need to finish the game. Blockbuster title Doom was released this way, and made everyone involved very wealthy, so don't feel resentful when you submit a galleries you bought for people to look at for free. The money will come back to you.
Lesson 3: Names Matter
As more money flows into the videogame community, companies have to work harder to attract the fickle attention of consumers, so there are more and more sequels released. Games with even moderate levels of success are quickly followed with seemingly endless new editions or expansion packs. It's all about building a brand.
The adult Internet is similar. Consumers flock to names they know will deliver the kind of content they’re looking for. Also popular: games based on movies. Movie titles have become a huge branch of the videogame market, with studios hiring software companies to develop online versions of their movie-game tie-ins, kind of like porno companies hired Web developers to launch online versions of their brands.
Lesson 4: Originality isn't Everything
For every shockingly original title like The Sims or Rez, there are hundreds of watered-down imitations of last-year's monster hit. Innovation is definitely the exception as opposed to the norm, and that's not a bad thing. When game development can run up to $20 million for a single title, creating a groundbreaking new concept in gaming that risks alienating fans seems less tempting than churning out another first-person shooter with a guaranteed consumer base. Same with adult. Look at what works. Look at who's earning the money, and learn from them. Model your own site or content after theirs and catch some overflow.
Lesson 5: It's all about the Niche
Videogame companies have built fortunes by lasering in on the small differences in tastes between gamers. Within the broad categories of games (squad-based combat, first-person shooter, life simulation) there are myriad settings and tones to appeal to the varying tastes of gamers.
For instance, If you're a fan of 3D platform games and horror, but you don't like realistic simulation, and you're a fan of light role-playing games, but without playing against other players, you might want to try Blood Rayne 2, a new release from Majesco that promises a gory, vampire apocalypse. Fans of realistic war simulations can choose between World War II, Desert Storm, and Vietnam as well as countless other global conflicts real and imagined for their cyber-enjoyment.
Same goes for adult. It might not seem like there are that many fans into pantyhose or smoking, but when considering the entirety of the Net, the number of fans interested in those niches will more than make for enough numbers to keep operators happy; plus, if you bring someone exactly what they've always wanted, they'll keep coming back for more.
Mr. Ochs is wasting his life playing videogames and writing for AVN Online. Send him an e-mail, why don'tcha?
