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Name Joone Joone Other names Joone, Ali Joone, Joonie Alma mater University of Southern California Organization Digital PlaygroundDiosa Spirits Spouse(s) Samantha Lewis (divorced) | ||
Joone is an Iranian-American photographer, director and producer. For directing pornographic films, he won AVN Award twice. In 1993, Joone founded American pornographic movie studio Digital Playground and was a co-owner of the company until it was acquired by Manwin in 2012.
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Career
Ali Joone better known by the pseudonym Joone, was born in Iran and graduated from USC School of Cinematic Arts.
He founded the Digital Playground company in 1993 when he was 25 and still a student, initially 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".
Joone has directed the pornographic films Pirates and Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge.
In January 2012, alongside his ex-wife Samantha Lewis who was co-owner, CEO and President of Digital Playground, he reached an agreement with Fabian Thylmann to sell the company to Manwin. On the acquisition, Joone commented: “To me this deal is no different than the acquisition of Pixar by Disney, The consumer is going to see more blockbusters, big-budget productions, and it’s our goal to create the next genre of adult entertainment. This acquisition is a marriage between two industry leaders. Adult entertainment is changing and Manwin has a lead on technology.” The price or terms of the deal was not disclosed, but it was announced that Lewis and Joone will "continue to oversee the studio", however, it was reported in March that Manwin has released Lewis and some other employees in orther to make changes.