Area served Worldwide | ||
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Founded 2003; 14 years ago (2003) Headquarters Burbank, Los Angeles, California, U.S. | ||
Digital Playground Inc. is an American pornographic movie studio, headquartered in Burbank, California. It has been called one of the five biggest porn studios and, in 2006, was described by Reuters as one of the handful of studios that dominate the U.S. porn industry. The studio has been at the forefront of introducing new communications technology, as it emerges, into porn.
Contents
- History
- Films
- Directors
- Releases
- Studio Awards
- Individual Awards and Recognition
- Porn industry awards
- Site security breach
- References
Digital Playground has a traffic ranking of 8016 (May 2016).
History
Adult director Joone founded the company in 1993, originally making adult CD-ROM computer games. Commenting on the transition of the pornography industry from the underground economy to mainstream corporate acceptance, the company's founder said: "I look at the porn business where Vegas and gambling was in the 70's". "Vegas was still mob-owned and they were making the transition between these small groups of people to being corporate owned". "I feel the same exact thing is going to happen with adult". The company became an innovator in making pornography available on personal computers. In 2003 DP began working with a company specializing in hologram technology, with the aim of bringing the actress "into the viewer's living room". DP began filming in high-definition in 2005. In January 2006 the company chose Blu-ray Disc over rival format HD DVD because Joone felt Blu-ray Disc was more future-proofed. DP initially had difficulty finding a company prepared to produce its films in the Blu-ray Disc format, as companies that replicated DVDs were reluctant to deal with the pornography industry.
The Digital Playground studios have been labeled as "trailblazers" for iPads, HD and three-dimension technology for cinema and television into the porn industry. Digital's former chief executive Samantha Lewis, who also produced and/or directed DP films, has claimed that "many technology brands [have] used the adult industry [and DP, in particular,] to test new markets" because of "the sheer scale of the [porn] industry".
The studio was acquired by Manwin in March 2012.
Films
Digital Playground pioneered the top-selling virtual sex genre of CD-ROMs and DVDs, in which the viewer can "command" a famous pornographic actress by selecting from a menu of explicit scenes. The first film in the series was released in 1998. In the series the actress looks directly at the camera, and appears to talk directly to the viewer. According to Joone, "It's the closest you'll ever get to having sex with our girls without really having sex with them". "When you're watching a regular porn movie, you're watching it in the third person". "You're basically a voyeur". "This way it's a first-person experience". "If the girl is in the missionary position, the camera is looking down at her as you would be if you were actually there with her". "You're the god of your world at that moment". Virtual Sex with Jenna Jameson is one of the top-selling adult DVDs of all time according to adultdvdempire.com sales charts. The viewer is able to choose the camera angles, the sexual position of the selected actress and her demeanor – either "innocent" or "nasty".
In 2004, Digital Playground produced the first HD pornographic film, Island Fever 3, shot on location in Tahiti and Bora Bora.
In 2005, the company released Pirates, a film that billed itself as "offering all of the production values of any Hollywood box office film" and a "monumental step towards the eminent [sic] merging of the entertainment industries". RogReviews called it "the most talked about adult movie of the year".
Digital Playground released Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge in 2008. Written and directed by Joone and once again starring Jesse Jane, Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge also featured Stoya, Riley Steele, Katsuni, Sasha Grey, Belladonna, and Gabriella Fox. "The production values were very high (you can see every penny on the screen too), the movie having twice as many special effect shots as the original, an even better cast, and the kind of package that you just don't see every day," wrote Don Houston of Xcritic.com. The movie was also released in an R-rated version.
Directors
Digital Playground's production team is led by director Robby D. and producer/director and Joone. Joone directed the Virtual Sex series.
Releases
Most notable films released by Digital Playground are:
Studio Awards
Individual Awards and Recognition
Porn industry awards
The following is a non-exhaustive list of porn industry awards that DP films have won:
Site security breach
On March 12, 2012, it was reported that the website for Digital Playground was breached, resulting in customer information being compromised. Included in the information breached and portions made public were usernames, e-mail addresses, passwords, credit card numbers and expiration dates. The membership page on that date stated that their member services were "temporarily unavailable" and that "We are currently verifying the security parameters on this site and upgrading the entire system in order to better safeguard your information."