May 02, 2002 02:20pm
Set Your E3 Expo Appointment Today!
Source: Vivid Interactive
by: Company Press Release
With the release of the DVD compatible gaming systems, Vivid DVD has seen a dramatic increase in sales within the nontraditional erotica markets. The tremendous support from mainstream music and computer retailers as well as the release of the Playstation 2 and Microsoft X Box have directly attributed to the record-breaking months Vivid Interactive has recently experienced.
Please join us for an interactive demonstration at our Los Angeles offices during the week of E3. This is an excellent time to see how you can take advantage of a growing market. We will be running shuttles to and from the tradeshow as well as meeting with vendors at the convention center. The schedule is filling up, please make an appointment today.
Below you can find an article on Vivid and the Playstation 2 connection originally printed in MCV magazine. For more information on our DVD's please visit us on the web at VividDVD.com. (No nudity on this site)
To set an appointment or for more information please contact:
Robbie Conley
Vivid Interactive
818-908-9663x172
MCV Article on Vivid Interactive:
The arrival of PlayStation 2 in the West last autumn was immediately seized upon as an ideal new format for adult DVD movies. U.S. porn giant Vivid was one of the first to announce its intentions for the format. Already labeling its titles with a 'PS2 compatible' sticker, the company is now bringing its products to the UK. And the games trade is a major target. Mike Sabine reports...
When Sony launched the Betamax the company refused to allow adult content. Despite much better picture quality, Betamax lost the platform battle to VHS.
Sony was also the first company pressing laserdiscs when the platform launched. Again, it would not work with any adult material. By the time other companies began pressing laserdiscs the platform was already dead.
Recalling those events, David James, president of Vivid Entertainment leans forward in his chair when he tells us of the Video Software Dealers Association 1997 show in Las Vegas when DVD was introduced. For the show, Sony let Vivid borrow a big screen television and several 26-inch sets to show its DVD-based adult content. Adult content was one way for Sony to help promote the new DVD platform.
"I think Sony realizes that adult material will probably help them sell more PlayStation 2 hardware," James says. Whether Sony appreciates the additional publicity or not, Vivid has been promoting PS2's ability to play its films.
James believes adult DVD producers will be able to reach 12 to 14 per cent of PS2's installed base as the machine matures over the next few years.
"It's not hard to sell pretty, naked girls to the Playstation 2 customer," says Gary Thompson, Vivid's vice president of business development. Vivid has found a way to get Tower Records store managers in the Us to not only promote the Vivid brand, but to set up lavish displays of Vivid's product line in stores. The store personnel erect displays with the items that Vivid provides, then take a photograph to submit to Vivid. Many of them were quite impressive.
The end result is 20 store managers win a trip to Orlando, Florida, that coincides with music trade show NAMM, at which Vivid exhibits.
Assuming Vivid is able to strike distribution deals that see its products in major UK chains, the company may do the same here. We suspect UK store managers will be just as eager.
Of course there may be concerns about putting adult content on shelves in retailers that children may see.
"It's all clean, with photographs more like Vogue. A child could walk along past the shelves and see it. It wouldn't look different to a Hollywood-type movie," explains James.
While Vivid currently releases 24 titles per month in the US, the UK will probably get no more than four per month. Pushing titles through the BBFC is expensive and is stricter than its U.S. counterpart, the MPAA.
Vivid plans to begin releasing titles as early as Mayor June with the big push into PS2-friendly retailers coming as a result of exhibiting at a number of trade shows.
If chains such as HMV and Virgin begin to stock some of Vivid's product line, it should also help them reach women. Yes, women.
Men, James says, know they can get adult films cheaper in sex shops. However, women will not go into the sex shops. But they will buy from Tower Records, Virgin or HMV.
While it may not be openly discussed in civilized society, women are viable punters of porn. In fact, based on Tower Records' own research, 27 per cent of adult films rented from that chain in the U.S. Are by women, James says.
Part of the reason is because many of Vivid's movies have high production value and plots. And they are less hardcore than much of the competition. Nor are they of the fetish nature.
"Even if you didn't have the sex, there would be enough storyline to qualify as a B-movie in Hollywood," James claims.
With adult films Vivid copied Hollywood. Turning its adult actresses into stars has helped the firm succeed. "We'd have stars like Ginger Lynn," recalls James. Today it's girls like Raylene, Kobe Tai, Dyanna Lauren (who retired, but now directs), Janine and Chasey Lain. Vivid keeps these girls under contract so they do not work for competitive filmmakers.
"You'd be surprised how popular these girls are. They're like rock stars," explains Thompson.
"Our stars generate a big following," agrees James. " Who is in the movie becomes more sellable in exactly the same way as Hollywood. It's like the Grinch movie and Jim Carrey."
Courtesy of MCV Magazine
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