LOS ANGELES—Stoney Curtis calls the recent launch of WhorecraftVR “probably the biggest of my career,” a strong statement for the AVN Hall of Fame producer/director in the midst of his 25th year in adult entertainment.
For Curtis, who has spent his entire career pushing the envelope with a constant flow of new series and some of the most clever titles in porn history, rolling out WhorecraftVR underscores his refusal to be complacent.
“You have to evolve otherwise you get eliminated,” says Curtis, who made a name for himself with his hardcore, often wacky gonzo style of filmmaking that has become synonymous with his Lethal Hardcore brand and prior to that, Celestial Productions.
With WhorecraftVR, Curtis teamed with online retail powerhouse, Adult Empire, on an ambitious project that was 16 months in the making, creating an immersive porn parody experience unlike anything that’s come before it.
The producers spared no expense, splurging for authentic costumes and hiring A-list female talent. Their use of state-of-the-art CGI technology—shot via a green screen—brings the fantasy game elements to life. The site is designed to flow like a real-time strategy video game, but with strokable sex—Curtis wouldn’t settle for less.
“I think we’re on the very edge of the technology,” Curtis says. “We looked at what everybody did and we said let’s raise the bar about three notches and let’s see where we go from there.”
Curtis tells AVN that he did his homework on the offerings in the VR space and wanted to take his project a step further.
“In my mind I wanted to do something that was challenging,” Curtis explains. “I’ve been in the business 25 years and at this point late in the career I wanted to shake it up and do something completely different and take on a new challenge.
“Challenges and things like this are what keeps you young. It’s like finding the fountain of youth by pushing yourself to do new things.”
The genesis of the project came when Curtis’ nephew commented to him about how hot the girls were in one of his favorite peer-to-peer online video games. The well-known game happens to be played by hundreds of millions of people from all over the world.
“Guys that grew up with the game have a lot of love and admiration for the girls that were in it and now they’re old enough to buy porn, so it’s a crossover thing,” Curtis reasons.
“From what I understand 80 percent of all VR goggles in the country are sold to gamers.”
Receptive to the encouragement from his nephew, Curtis decided to go big or go home, opting for 180-degree 3D sex laid into 360-degree custom graphic artwork with elaborate CGI worlds that include effects such as Orcs, dragons, tigers and portals. That's not to mention the type of hardcore action on which he’s built his career.
“We have a lot of cool functions on the site,” Curtis says. “You can pick a scene and move it and drag and drop it. You can pick a world, pick a girl. There are custom galleries for the fans. You can use it as your desktop wallpaper. There are mobile wallpapers, photo galleries of the girls in costumes. And it’s compatible with various VR goggles and media formats.”
He continues, “I didn’t want to cheapen it by shooting in some living room. I really wanted to create the fantasy for people to kind of escape into the scenarios. And I always wanted to make something that was both VR and high-definition. We actually create the high-def while we shoot the VR; we shoot simultaneously so people are getting true HD. It was very expensive—it’s in the thousands to create the effects. The 360-degree wraparound graphics are crazy expensive and the costumes are over $20,000.”
Curtis reached out to a friend who is a professional makeup artist, who connected him with a Hollywood costume designer to create the medieval-looking attire. So far WhorecraftVR features 10 different worlds of multi-layered action; there are already plans for at least four new worlds and characters in the works—and another game.
WhorecraftVR updates four times a month to start with plans to increase the frequency to six updates per month in the near future. Users may buy content on a per-scene basis if they don’t want to commit to a full membership.
Among the stars of the current adventures are Abella Danger, Karlee Grey and Romi Rain; each star’s character is based on a fantasy archetype. Some of the updates Curtis will be unveiling in the coming weeks include Victoria June, Tana Lana, Naomi Woods, Bridgette B, Moka Mora, Elena Koshka, Kristen Scott, Valentina Nappi and Arya Faye.
Curtis turned to a pair of studs—Jerry Kovacs, Eric John—to supply the lumber for the majority of the current sex scenes.
“It’s very hard to do VR [for guys],” Curtis says. “You have to sit still while the girl does a lot of work on you and you have to be very quiet. That’s something that a lot of guys would have trouble doing. Adult Empire did a tremendous job of designing the site and creating these works of art of the girls in the costumes.”
Even a quarter century and a few thousand scenes later, Curtis says he still has passion for making porn.
“I’m still having fun in pornography which is the most amazing thing about my career,” he says. “OK the longevity is there. Some people have been around a long time but they hate what they do. It’s more like a job for them. I still feel like I’m only three of four years into the business at times.”
He continues, “I’ve been doing this a long time and I wanted to give something to the porn industry that they’ve never seen before. It’s very difficult to take our jaded eyes, to give us something we’ve never seen before. I wanted to do something in this industry that would leave a mark. You gotta bet on yourself. If you don’t bet on yourself, no one else will.
"Since launch the site is doing amazing sales and growing daily with visitors looking for something new and fresh in 3D VR. More and more affiliates have jumped on board as well. Look for the HD version available on Whorecraft VR - A Virtual Reality Porn Parody. We also will have banners up on all the major VOD sites July 18th. Pornhub has a huge promo planned as well coming soon, so stay tuned."
