An interesting mainstream article on VR I came across that is pessimistically realistic but that yet ends on a note of cautious optimism. A particularly observant point that is relevant to the expectations and hopes of the VR porn industry over the next year or two is that most people who wanted VR (and likewise, VR Porn) have already got it.
Another factor would be, that most people who wanted VR got it in 2016 — massive promo campaigns, demos everywhere and a lot of free content. PSVR launched in October and in February (4 months) it sold 915K units. Then it took 3 more months to reach 1M — very massive drop in sales volume. Maybe Rift aggressive pricing strategy helped a bit, but there is no way to know. Novelty and wow factors wear out and these people are back to their day to day duties. This can explain drop in ownership percentage — those headsets are now collecting dust.
https://medium.com/@janhorsk/is-vr-finally-dying-24381ea96c93
Despite what you read in the mainstream media from the likes of VRPorn.com in Maxim etc., the VR porn industry is very much in the doldrums at the moment. A lot of sites must be pinning their hopes on a Christmas period boost coming from headset sales in the weeks between the forthcoming Black Friday sales and the New Year. Search traffic last Xmas went up four or five fold for a brief period and then has essentially flatlined since. However, it’s unlikely we’re going to see such a massive spike this time around. In fact, I wouldn’t expect VR porn traffic to reach the levels of last Christmas on a regular basis for at least another 4 or 5 years. There is some optimism about the ‘Oculus Go’ standalone VR headset that should go on sale early next year for as little as $200, but it’s unlikely to be the game changer that kickstarts massive headset sales. It will still be more expensive than the present Gear VR, and it’s hard to believe that the convenience of not having to plug your smartphone into the headset will be such a massive factor.
However, if VR porn search interest doesn’t spike at least towards 75% of that shown last Xmas, then it could be a very worrying indicator of future trends, as even 3D TV porn managed to spike a little ahead of it’s first year of hype in 2011. The following two Google search trend graphs are worth comparing.
