Playboy phasing out DVD in favor of internet content
By Steven Kim 
posted Oct 21st 2008 10:30AM
posted Oct 21st 2008 10:30AM
This year has seen porn studio Digital Playground go Blu and a growth in adult VOD offerings on the market, and even the venerable Playboy has seen declining DVD sales. But rather than jump on the Blu bandwagon, the house that Hef built is taking a more Vudu-like approach and giving up on physical media altogether in favor of online distribution. As the linked article describes, changes in the adult media market since Playboy's inception have a lot to do with the company's current troubles, but you can't totally dismiss the decision to skip over Blu-ray either. For now, we'll categorize this under "notable;" Playboy is only one producer and porn is a natural fit for anonymous delivery via internet and VOD. What's your call?
This makes sense for an adult media company. You have a narrower distribution channel with "mild" adult content (correct me if i'm wrong but no Walmart, Target, Costco, etc.) like playboy so rather than continuing with physical media, the digital route offers them a better avenue of delivery and marketing. Pr0n and anonymity go hand it hand.
Playboy is skipping Blu-Ray because they are horribly cash poor.
As a company they could more easily transfer old content in NTSC to internet downloads than try and compensate in the HD world. Blu-Ray would require too much production quality on new shoots for HD.
Sorry, but Playboy is in trouble, if they can't even do Blu-Ray, profits are down, and now Hefner can't even throw parties at the mansion unless other people rent it out and pay for it themselves.
It's sad to see playboy in this trouble, it has been mismanaged for years by Christie Hefner, instead of reinvesting and bringing the brand to new heights, instead they just do less each year and continue to decline. playboy tv channel is a great example of why.... they just keep repurposing the same horrible programming, the only new programming is xxx movies, which are so horribly censored people don't want to buy the channel.
Playboy has issues, Blu-Ray can't be judged by their cheapness.
When you consider that most of the money made from Porn nowadays is gained from the Internet it makes since to just bypass a media that will cost you $25,000+ just to put your hand on the door nob, heheh I said nob. Very few porn companies have released much of anything on Blu-ray for this reason, they are part of an industry which produces and distributes at the cheapest possible costs, and yet pays their "actors and actresses" fees which would make a TV star blush just because they know that the stars of their films are what sell the product.
Does Playboy do real porn? I don't think of them when thinking of porn. Not much of a story here.
Playboy has not been relevant in quite a while. The move away from physical media is a good thing for them if they are unwilling to go Blu-ray. Many of us are bored with Softcore unless it is in insane resolutions, and the girl is natural and truly beautiful. Blu-Ray would give good resolution and quality, especially at a high, high bitrate, however Playboy's choice in women has floundered as its all silicon and photoshop so "moving pictures" in 1080p would reveal something that just doesn't cut it unless that woman was actively engaged in various acts that are beyond Playboy's scope. Of course playboy would also just soft focus the whole scene to compensate, making the Blu-Ray pointless. Seeing how no one is paying for an overpriced DVD of 480p Playboy-produced junk now, why even do it. Now maybe they can downsize enough to take full advantage of the little revenue they still get from the remaining people who still think their stuff is dirty enough to "do any good". However, you're already at the computer, with the whole internet to choose from, there is so much better out there. They need to take a cue from a place like Met-Art if they actually want to do Softcore right again.
Hustler is the only old-school player that has kept up fully with the evolution of the industry, of course, they don't limit themselves to being the Disney of porn.
All that said, there is that niche market for Playboy DVDs that you would watch with your girlfirend to "warm her up" and at the same time not letting on that you really, at this point on the internet, could gain some pleasure off even seeing 2 girls, 1 cup again.
Well, I see that as a sure bet to make their video offerings more and more irrelevant.
Why would someone pay for something they can have for free? Going online makes this even more "in your face".
What they need to do is find a medium where they can show added value, like Magazine including a Blu Ray or something like that.
But de-materializing? Most people just check bittorent and they'll find more porn than they could manage in 2 or 3 lifetimes.
LOL
"porn is a natural fit for anonymous delivery via internet and VOD"
What part of any of this via VOD do you imagine is even remotely anonymous? There is a pretty decent law in place to protect your physical store records for video rentals, care to sight anything similar for ANY internet traffic? Think Ma Bell is not filtering and stacking your packets, think again. Think any vod delivery services is not carefully culling your data and selling id freely on back channels?
Anyone who thinks anything they do online is anonymous (unless they have taken very aggressive actions) is stoned.
Yeah -- I think the "anonymity" I was referring to is more along the lines of not being publicly seen in possession of porn/adult material. Shady bookstores, unmarked brown bags and the like.