Originally written by qDot for mmorgy.com

(This article is part of a multi-part feature on the viability of different business models for virtual world porn. Links to other articles will be added to this one as they are finished.)

Competition in real world versus virtual world porn in an interesting dichotomy.

Let's look at the main resource in content driven porn industries: the model (as in, the person in the movie, not the business model, which is also a model, but like, not a person... I'm a blogger, I don't need a thesaurus!). In a real world porn business, models are a renewable resource, at least, as long as we as a species keep managing to both spawn and jack off to pictures of each other. However, each resource is also depletable due to issues of age, amount of, er... "use", amount of augmentation (fancy word for surgeries), so on and so forth.

One might think this different for virtual world scenarios, but a lot of the same rules apply. First off, age does factor in, but not the physical age of the model. Virtual models don't get old and don't die. Hell, they can get younger if you want, just depends on what outfit you have them in. However, the world moves at the speed of technology, and that's where the problem with age lies. Though the models themselves have nothing to worry about, but the second the world you are using to produce your content patches for something like the rendering engine, the playing field is flattened again until all of the skin/animation/set makers can catch up with the new features. Using anything else looks dated, and following the expiration date theory of an earlier article in this series, dated content in virtual worlds isn't a viable product.

Then there's the post production process, which is where the real world and virtual world tend to come together quite a bit more. Post-production is where you take the raw content you've filmed and turn it into the pretty, wonderful finalized piece that you will sell to the masses. The field here is divided by two factors, money and creative talent (though obviously, enough of one should be able to produce the other). In terms of money, what's needed here is hardware and software. As money is MUCH easier to come by in real world porn (due to pretty insane profit margins, even after 2257 compliance, salaries, distribution, etc...), you'll find top of the line editing equipment and software, as well as highly skilled editors, artists, designers, and the like. After all, your content is only as good as your touch up skills.

In virtual world porn, the same idea applies. The profit margins on virtual porn will be scaled much farther back, so hardware will probably be the same machine the original content was rendered on. All the software to do basic touch up work can be found for free (VirtualDub, GIMP, etc...), but otherwise low-end programs will most likely be used (I'm trying to assume legitimacy here, but it's pretty obvious most of this is going to be pirated anyways), and the rendering engine of the content production software will be relied upon for making things look good the first time around. That last point also extends into the fact that most amateur virtual world porn producers may have no idea how the post-production process should work, leaving them to either ignore it completely and go straight from content creation to market, or else do a mediocre job of fixing content with what skills they have. With the massive importance of post-production, this means anyone with a modicum of artistic or software skill has a MASSIVE advantage the second they come into the market.

Let's take an example. Look at Sakado Shikami's erotic content versus portrait work by artist Kriss Lehmann.

Both use the Second Life rendering engine, but have a different level of both pre and post production skills.

The real question is, which one would you rub one off to? ('Neither' is a valid answer)