Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 201 with Neil Herrin of Vanilla Gaming Company

This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk where each week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry and we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week we’ll be speaking with Neil Herrin of Vanilla Gaming Company. Would you like an easy way to make a lot of money? Send sellers or buyers to us at Adult Site Broker through our affiliate program, ASB Cash. When you refer business to us, you’ll receive 20% of our broker commission on all sales that result from that referral for life. You can make $100,000 or more on only one sale for some of our listings. Check out ASB Cash.com for more details and to sign up. At Adult Site Broker, we’re proud to announce our latest project, thewaronporn.com. You’ll find articles from industry websites as well as mainstream publications from around the world. It’s designed to raise awareness of our industry’s plight in the war on porn and the numerous attacks on our industry and online free speech by hate groups, the religious right and politicians. You’ll find all that and more at thewaronporn.com. We’ve also added an events section to our website at adultsidebroker.com. Now you can get information on B2B events on our site as well as special discounts reserved for our clients. Go to adultsidebroker.com for more details. Now time for our property the week that’s for sale at Adult Site Broker. We’ve reduced the price on our network of sites in the Bukake and Gangbang niches. They’ve been in business since 2009 when the first site came online. The owner shoots his own content in swingers clubs in his local area. He’d be available for a period of time to shoot content and train someone to take his place doing production. The content model is brilliant. Guys pay for entrance to the club and this pays for the talent and the production of the content as well as the money going to the club owner. So the content cost is zero. Yes, you heard right. The website income has been consistent and continues to grow. The websites and content make this a perfect turnkey business for anyone looking to own their own pay sites or for a larger company. There’s a huge opportunity for growth. Now only $199,000. Now time for this week’s interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk is Neil Herron, a vanilla gaming company. Hey Neil, thanks for being back with us today on Adult Site Broker Talk. Yeah, thanks for bringing me back Bruce. It’s a pleasure. If Kenny Powers and Johnny Lawrence created a video game studio, it would be the vanilla gaming company. Their games are riddled with comedy, style, and most importantly, attitude in an area where comedy is the villain. Don’t we know that? And everyone gets offended over the simplest of jokes. They’re very unapologetic in their comedic approach and they vow to stand against those who look to suppress freedom of speech, specifically comedy. In other words, they’re going to make their jokes whether you like it or not. You can either laugh and have a good time or shut the fuck up and move along. Neil Herron, aka vanilla, started the vanilla gaming company in 2020 since then he’s launched Retro Knockout, a Mike Tyson punch out parody video game that was the first game in history to feature an adult film star, Nikki Huntsman, who played herself with full voiceover work, original art, and she was offered as a playable character. Retro KO is also the first game in history to be nominated for an AVN award in 2023 for best mainstream venture of the year. Neil is currently working on the vanilla beast game franchise that tells his life story across multiple video games in a comedic fashion. He’s currently working on vanilla beast, Mystery Kink, a Scooby-Doo parody game featuring Blake Blossom, Jewel Denial, Kiki Deere, and Nikki Huntsman again. Neil prides himself on using comedy to create fun and enjoyable games that don’t push agendas or politics down your throat and allow gamers to sit back, laugh, and be entertained without all the micro transactions and nickel and dime game formats you see all too often these days. So first of all, before we even get started, congratulations on the AVN nomination, Neil. Yeah, thanks Bruce, appreciate that. And before we get into the games and AVN, I want to ask you about your nickname. You go by vanilla, it was even on your badge at AVN. How did your name come about? That’s a good question. I actually get that a lot. It’s funny in the adult film industry, vanilla means you’re weak, right? You’re plain. It’s just, you know, you don’t get in the much. You’re very plain. But it actually has nothing to do with that. I was, you know, a preteen in the early 90s and I spent my entire teenage years in the 90s. Boy, I wish we could go back to Baywatch and all that good stuff, right? So about that time, if you remember, Bruce, there was a musician, we’ll call him coming up by the name of vanilla ice. Yes. And unfortunately, or fortunately, I don’t know, I guess the way you look at it for me, I looked a lot like him. I had the long face, my hair was up in the air. Yeah, you kind of do. That’s right. Yeah. If you’d go back 30 years, I really look like him and I didn’t cut the steps in the side of my head, but I look so much like vanilla ice. Everybody just started calling me vanilla ice. And you know, as a man, even if you’re a boy at that point, you don’t really look like you really want someone else’s name, right? I mean, you want your own thing. You don’t want to be like shadow, somebody shadow. So we kind of dropped the ice and people would call me vanilla. But then at that time, I was getting really good at gaming. You got to figure this was the 90s still. There was no online play, that stuff, you know, Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet. So we were still waiting on that. And I was good at video games. And back in the day, there was a phrase that if you were good at gaming, they would call you a beast on the sticks like a beast. So people were kind of calling me that and vanilla. And I just combined the two to vanilla beast. And that became kind of like my gaming handle, right? And everything kind of spawned from vanilla beast just because I looked like vanilla ice and I was good at gaming. And then since then, I’m vanilla van, VB, a lot of people call me, but sounds like an STD like, I mean, I got VB again, you know? But you know, so everything spawned from that. But it’s fun because the 90s was, you know, such a fun time for me being a dad. I actually graduated high school in 1999, Bruce. So we were here in Prince’s party like it’s 1999 for months leading up to our graduation. So I like the name, you know, the vanilla stuck because I, and I do like vanilla. I love vanilla ice cream, yogurt, you know, anything. So I’m like, all right, we can do that. I’m a chocolate man myself. Retro knockout was the first game in history to be nominated for an official AVN award. What was your first AVN experience like? Well, it wasn’t just my first AVN experience, Bruce. It was actually my first time in Vegas, like ever. Lucky you. Yeah. Me, a lot of people can’t believe that because, well, I’m not that well traveled. Like I’ve been down South of town, you know, like Florida, I’ve been to Florida probably more than anywhere else in Carolina, Georgia. I’ve actually even been out of the country. Jamaica’s probably been my favorite location. Sandals Montego Bay. Beautiful. Just the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Beautiful. But I’ve never gone out West. I can just never, never had a reason to go out there. By the way, I was on a cruise ship one time and this comedian said, when they say to you, no problem, you know what they mean? Up yours. Really? Because I got a lot of no problems. It’s a joke. It’s a joke. I was like, man, they must have hated me. I really liked them though. It was a great time. Everybody around Jamaica was awesome. So yeah, this is my first time out West, like ever. And Vegas was an experience, you know, and I got there and we’re doing the Uberside. So I stayed with Nikki Huntsman and two of her friends of which are also adult actresses. We got an Airbnb to save money, right? Smart way to do it. And I get out there and I notice, I think to myself, this is a ghost town compared to what the movies show, right? I mean, like where? I mean, sure, there’s casinos and flashing lights, but the streets weren’t crowded, right? I mean, there wasn’t a thousands of people. And if I remember right, like, I don’t know if it was Copperfield, but they had a big magician in town. I think there was a Trump rally going on. They had all this big time stuff happening. And I get there and I’m thinking to myself, where’s everybody at? You know, and then one of the other girls in a car goes, man, I thought there’d be more people. I’m like, yeah, it’s not just me. You know, like that’s what I was thinking. And we started talking about it. And I talked to some locals and they said, oh, it really wiped them out. They said, we never really recovered from 2020. Like the people just didn’t come back. So I thought that was interesting. You know what I mean? I had no idea. I really, I’m thinking oceans 11. You know what I mean? I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. It used to be when you went down Las Vegas Boulevard, when you went down the strip, there were tons of people walking. And when I first came out there, that was the case and all these guys handing out these cards for escort services and things like that. I didn’t get any of that. Come on. No, you’re right. It was relatively dead walking along the strip. There’s no two ways about it. I hadn’t even thought about it. Yeah. And a couple of our Uber drivers, you know, and a couple of locals just kind of, you know, you get in conversation as you’re waiting and driving and things. And yeah, and they’re like, yeah, they’re like, we have not recovered. And that was odd because I’m from the Midwest. I live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and we’re fine. Like you know, I live, we’re totally, we’re normal. We’re back to normal now, but it’s like, wow, I had not, that was the first place I’ve been to that has not recovered from COVID. And I thought it was really, really interesting. But AVN, you know, if we’ll switch back to your actual question there. I mean, there’s a ton of people there because, you know, that was held in the Hilton right there, Resorts World. And our B&B was maybe five to 10 minutes drive from there. So it was nice. I didn’t stay in the hotel, you know, like some people did. Again, lucky you. The experience itself was, you know, it’s a tough question to answer because some parts of it was really neat. And I admired it and said, well, this is neat. And then a lot of it was underwhelming at the same time. Does that make, you know what I mean? It was like it was both at the same time. It was neat and underwhelming at the same time. You know, it was weird. If you had never been to Vegas and you’d never been to AVN before, yeah, it would be both. Yeah. And like a lot of people had mentioned, you see a lot of stuff on the social media that they were upset. It was in a tent, right? Like, you know, I mean, if you’ve seen that, a lot of people was out there. They were upset. But when I got there, there was a gap between like maybe what, a hundred less than a hundred foot gap between the hotel and the actual AVN Expo. And it was covered. It was a little cold walking when the blue wind was, but it was no big, but once you got inside the tent, you didn’t really know you were in a tent. I, you know, I mean, I was in the, and I was helping Nikki out. It was a convention space. Exactly. It was a convention space, no different than, than like a Comic Con, like a San Diego Comic Con or something very, very similar. I didn’t have an issue with that. Yeah. I didn’t either. I really didn’t. I thought it was fine. I think people were overacting on social media as far as that goes. But hey, you know, and like I said with him first time, and I’ll tell you this Bruce, I didn’t bring the work laptop. I told Nikki, cause you know, me and Nicky are close and we were staying together. And I said, look, I’m treating this, it is a business venture because I want to network. I want to talk to people there. I want to let them know what, you know, what I’m doing, but at the same time, I’m going to have a little fun. I’m not taking the work laptop. I’m not doing work. And I said, look, no agendas. I’m not trying to be somewhere at one and at one 30 and at two, I’m going to go there and wherever I end up each day is where I end up. Well, does that be good or bad? I’m just going to go with the flow. Not a bad way to do it. Just being the first game ever nominated is huge. You made history. Or were you disappointed you didn’t win? Yes, I like to win anything I do. I’m very competitive. You know what I mean? Like I’m going to even play a board game with you if I don’t think I can win. But no, and then I’m a realist. Like I understood and you know, cause it really was Nikki up for the nomination. Sure, it was my game idea. I wrote it. I created the whole thing. But the reason why we were nominated is because Nikki Huntsman is and the adult film industry and she was, you know, the actress in the game. So it was kind of like a dual nomination there, but it would have went to her. So it’s one of those things Bruce, where it’s like, I know I had no control over this, right? Me being the first game is an honor. I mean, that is awesome. Nobody can take that away from me, right? I did something nobody’s ever done before. But the realist in me said, listen, this is a panelist of judges. It’s not voted on by the people, right? So I can’t do any marketing. Not going to help me. So it’s voted on by judges here and realistically, have they ever played my game? Probably not. Have they heard of it? Probably not. And they’re going to look at this like, what is this video game? I’m, you know, I don’t know how old these guys are, but my guess is they were probably older gentlemen. They’re not gamers. And they’re going to be like, okay, I’ve heard this song or I’ve seen this short movie or I know her and her big movie. So realistically, I did not expect to win. I just wanted to go have a good time. But I was hearing a lot of positive things. And that’s what the main thing I took away from AVN is when I got there and people heard who what I was doing, they thought it was cool. And then some people, you know, and I’m not a famous person, like it’s not at all. I don’t claim to be, I’m, I’m just a video game designer from Cincinnati. But when some people heard who I was, they’re like, oh dude, you make retro knockout. I love that game. And it was, so that was neat that people from the industry did know about the game and they knew what I was doing on a bigger spectrum of trying to bring the girls into mainstream because mainstream doesn’t want that, right? You know, keeping them in the box. And that was the best part of it for me because there was a couple of people I met and they literally like slipped out like, dude, you make these games. That’s so cool. So that made me feel good. So even though we didn’t win, it was a successful trip. But you know, we lost to a very big name that made a short film. It didn’t hurt my feelings none at all. But it just, it keeps you hungry too, right? We don’t want to get, we don’t want to be Rocky three. We want to be Rocky one and two, right? We want to stay hungry. Exactly. Would you say that was your favorite part or did anything else special happen? Yeah, I think it would be my favorite part is just having people dig what I’m doing because man, I put 24/7 on this, Bruce. This is all I do, you know, making these games. There’s a reason nobody has done this before because it’s hard because the marketing on the mainstream won’t talk to you. You know, you get all these people blocking you out. So you’re trying to get in on the adult film side, say, listen, I’m doing some really neat stuff here. So when you get recognized, that is. But we did do some club hopping. That was fun, you know, like I said, never been to Vegas and Nikki, she’s a party animal. She Nikki likes to party. And since, you know, she was kind, I told her she was going to be my Vegas Sherpa. Right. I said, listen, I don’t know what’s going on wherever you go, I’ll go. And there was Don, there was a couple of people out there that that I was friends with. I planned on beating up. I think my favorite part was just kind of seeing everything. We did do some, some pretty neat things and some since we had our passes that got us into all the backstage stuff. Making all those behind the scenes, which was neat because I did have a full pass. So I think just seeing the sights and hanging out with everybody. But you know what? I really liked, I enjoyed Bruce and this is the truth. Everybody there was so nice. I’m talking the actors, the actresses, because you know, this is an award. So number one is competitive, but even outside of that and a lot of industries, people are very competitive because they want to be the best. But I can tell you, Bruce, I mean, Nikki and just all these other girls that I was with there, they’re just, oh, I love your dress and you’re so pretty. I mean, everybody was uplifting. The girls were uplifting the girls. The guys were nice. I mean, like they took me in and that’s one of the reasons I mean, I had always heard that. But until this, I didn’t get a chance to physically see it in front because I could, it was, you know, major names of adult film stars, both and women and men. And when I was out there talking, I just was a part of them. You know what I mean? Like we could just talk and laugh and everybody was so nice. That was really my favorite part is that people came through as being good people. It’s like, that was, you know, like finally good people. We definitely are. Any regrets about Avian? Well, I didn’t get a chance to meet you, Bruce. And I do regret that. Yeah, that’s true. There was a couple of things going on. Yeah. Yeah. There was a couple of things going on. Seriously, that my biggest regret is you and there’s a couple of people that I’ve talked to, you know, we’ve done a couple of things and I know we don’t really know each other. I like to get to know people. Absolutely. I feel like I do know you doing a second interview with you here. So yeah, but I know I did that. That seriously is 100% I’m being honest here. It’s my regret as there was you and as a couple of other people, I didn’t get a chance because listen, I hit in Thursday. So I didn’t get, I didn’t do the whole week. I hit Thursday and I left Sunday. And when I got in there, yeah, a little late, you know, Thursday, it was bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Like I hit the ground running. And if I ate two times and one day I was filled. You know what I mean? I think Friday, one time in a couple of snacks like a candy bar because you just don’t stop at these expo. And I was helping Nikki too with her booth and everything. I’m like, because these girls, man, they’re on their heels. They’re working, they’re talking, they’re going all this stuff. They’re trying to make their money. And I told Nikki and the other girls she was staying with there and the ones I know, like, listen, you need anything, you need a drink. I’ll go buy it for you. I’ll bring it back to you. Like I was trying to help. I carried their bags. I’m just trying to be a gentleman, right? Because I know I’m an outsider and that kept me on my toes, but it was a great experience because I got to meet a lot of people through the girls and talk with them and see how the fans react. And man, there’s the fans. They really get into it, don’t they? They love it. Are you looking forward to going back or do you think this is a one and done experience? Well, I’ve heard that this might be the last year for Vegas. So I’m voting let’s hit something tropical. We’ll see. I’ve heard that for so many years and it was supposed to die during COVID and it didn’t die and I wouldn’t I wouldn’t count on it being over. I think they’ll be back in Vegas next year and I don’t know where else they do it. Maybe Miami. I don’t know. I have a feeling it’ll be back. I would be surprised if it wasn’t. Yeah, I know what you mean. Even if it was back there, I would definitely go back if I’m nominated again. Would I go back just to have fun? No, it’s not my kind of a thing because of the way it’s set up. And here’s the thing. If I didn’t have my pass, I wouldn’t have had any fun. There was a restaurant. I don’t know if you went to it or not. It was called the doghouse. It was right outside the expo in the Hilton and that’s where a lot of people hung out because it was so close. It actually had really good food like bar food burgers. They had some garlic fries, killer garlic fries, good burgers and it had like a live band on Friday night. It had like a live band. It was like a extravagant BW3. So we hung out like me and Don Juan de Marcos, Dirty Bob, a lot of the girls, we were hanging out on there Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Every day I was there, fun people were in there. And it’s like, I could do that. But if I went back just to have fun, they’re going to be able to go places I can’t go. And that’s not cool. Why don’t we do stand outside? Like I’m only 12 years old and I can’t get in. You know what I mean? Like that’s not all right. So I wouldn’t go back for fun. But if I’m nominated, Mystery Kink or anything else gets nominated and the girls are going and the girls are excited like Nikki was, then yeah, I would definitely go back and be a part of that. Well, maybe you can carry your bags next year and get a pass for that. Yeah, exactly. So before we get into your new game, Mystery Kink, is there anything else you got going on right now? Well, yeah, I actually did a pretty big move. You know, like I said, I was born in ’80s, so I’m 43 here. I lived in my house for over 20 years, Bruce, about 23 years. You know, it was fun. It was something like, man, I’ve never done this before. I’m like, I’ve done a lot of things in life. So I sold the house and moved and got into a place and working on the game. That’s the main thing. But I’ve done some voice acting too. Like some of these interviews I’ve been doing in podcasts, people was like, man, I like your voice. You have very distinct voice. And I actually did some voice acting for some video games and it’s funny. The first official voice role I got, I was talking with another game developer. We were talking about some marketing. You know, he runs his own show, owns his company, doing different games. And he’s like, I got a part. I think your voice is perfect for like really. And I say, what’s that? He says, the devil. That’s funny. Yeah, exactly. So I play a devil and a really funny game called Jerry Wanker and the quest to get laid. And I’m the devil that he talks to that tries to persuade him. It sounds like you should have done that game. It’s a funny game. But then checked us out. And then he also had me do the Scottish priest. Oh, God. So I’m doing polar opposite parts. You got the priest and the devil. Exactly. And the game’s not even about that. It’s not a religious game at all. They just happen to have, I mean, it’s got, you know, anything you could think of in it. But I just happened to get the devil and a priest, which I thought is funny. But yeah, I’ve been doing some of that on the side, you know, the voice acting. I think it’s fun because, you know, when COVID did hit in 2020, a lot of the professional celebrities like Sarah Michelle Geller, I know, said Freddie Prince Jr., you know, they’re married. I know Freddie said how he spoke about how he set up a recording studio in their house. And a lot of celebrities did that because you couldn’t go out and voice acting got bigger. You know what I mean? People started doing that type of stuff like Netflix had a really cool show I enjoyed. I think it was called He-Man Revelations and it was written by the, or Jay and Silent Bob, that guy, he wrote a new He-Man cartoon and they had these big actors, all actors and actresses playing the parts like Sarah Michelle Geller played Tila. But they recorded all this stuff from their house, from their individual houses, thousands of miles. And then they just, you know, email it in or whatever. And then the studio puts it together. That’s a neat way to do business, right? I mean, if you think about it, because now you’re not limited by who can go where. Hey, if you got the recording studio set up in your house and if it’s good quality. So I kind of did some of that too. And in a new place I’ve got here, you know, I’ve got this set up to do some recording. And it’s like I said, it’s something you can do without having to be on site. And it’s a lot of fun to do too. If you got a podcast, you better have a studio as well. There’s no two ways about it. So tell us about the game you’re working on now, Mystery Kink. How’s it different from retro knockout? The main way I would say it’s different is for anybody who has played retro knockout or if you’re interested and play it. It’s a Mike Tyson punch out parody, but it requires skill. Like I’ve never been quiet about this. It’s the first thing you read on the steam pages. Hey, we’re not going to coddle you because I wanted to capture how difficult that game was in the 90s. Sure, it starts easy, but it progressively gets more difficult. And you got to have timing. You got to have reflexes. But Mystery Kink, anybody can play this Bruce as long as you’re old enough. If you’re 18 or above, you can play. There’s no skills. It’s a fun game. It’s just an adventure. You can’t even die. Like you walk around and you find items and there’s jokes and like, you know, you’ll find an item that unlocks something here and you can go to a new area. It’s full of like Easter eggs from 90s movies. Because it’s a like a comedic horror, meaning it’s horror and you’re going to recognize and see a lot of like, like for example, Camp Crystal fake instead of Camp Crystal. Like you can parody that, make fun of it and Hellraiser and all that fun stuff and Freddie Kruger. And you’re going to recognize a lot of stuff, but we’re making fun of it. You know, it’s all good humor. And even you can play this Bruce. I’m serious. I’m going to give you a free key to the game. Me? Yes. I’m telling you, yes. I’m old. Well, I’m old too. So, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you’re not old compared to me. I’m 66 man. Come on. It is a bit, but seriously, I made it for people like you and mine. I’m not kidding because you may not be a gamer, right? And one of the intimidations of gaming is, oh, I got to learn 20 different buttons on this controller. I’m never going to memorize this. This is a simple game. It’s fun. And but what it does require is you to use your brain because you might go somewhere and be like, and like Blake Blossom will be like, oh, no, we need a banana. Where did we see a banana? And you might have to think, man, where, where, what level did we see that banana on? And you got to just go back and figure things out. And it’s got a lot of puzzles, a lot of mini games, but it’s just like matching buttons and stuff. It’s really difficult at all because what I didn’t want to do was alienate gamers and to, to where they felt like they couldn’t play this. I won’t, like I said, if you’re 18 and above Mystery King, it’s hilarious too. I’m writing all of it, but not only am I writing it, I’m giving the script to the girls and we haven’t done this yet. You know, we’re still in pre-production. Well, I guess we’re in real production, but we haven’t done the voiceovers and all yet. And I’ve given this, I’m going to give the script to the girls about two, three weeks early before we fly them all in and we work together on this so that they can write some of their own lines because I want it to sound like Kiki. Like I want Kiki to say, and I’m going to say, okay, we just walked into the Renaissance festival. How would you react to that? Give me a one liner. You know what I mean? So I don’t want these girls just reading what I wrote. I really want them to be a part of this. And I want to, because the fans know, right? You can’t trick the fans. The fans are going to be like, oh man, this is, you know what I mean? Like this is, they’re just reading from a script. No big deal. It might be funny, but I’m actually creating something. And Jewel Denial. I don’t know if you’ve ever met Jewel or not. She is awesome. She is funny. She’s down to earth. The first time I spoke with Jewel years back, it was supposed to be like a maybe a 20 minute phone call to introduce each other and see if she’s an arrested. We spoke, I’m not kidding you Bruce, over two hours. It was like we were old high school buddies. You know what I mean? And she’s so funny and she’s so accomplished and she’s smart and she’s done everything you can do. She’s owned her own company. She’s directed. She’s starred in this, you know, her back in the day, everything she would do with Peter Norris and everything was just like, it was revolutionary back at the time. If you think of the early 2000s. And so I want her to be a part of this and not just that she’s playing her character herself, but I want her mind in this. Like, you know, I want her to make some jokes. I want us to have fun because and it does start Blake Blossom, Jewel Denial, Kiki Deere and Nikki Huntsman were bringing her back. And it’s a really fun game where not only are these girls a part of it, you can play them. At any point in time, you can pick anybody you can pick myself. I’m the main character, of course. This is my company. What I says goes, but they’re all they accompany you. And depending on who you pick, different items will be available. Right. So you might walk by something and not be able to get it because you needed to be using Nikki, but you’re using Joel, but we’ll have clues for the player like Joel. Be like, hmm, I’m not sure maybe Nikki knows about this. And you know what I mean? So that way you’re not struggling because a lot of games, they don’t help you out. Right. So it’s just a fun, fun adventure full of comedy. I’m telling you, the comedy is over the top. It’s really funny and it’s something that everybody can get into and have a lot of fun with. Sounds like fun. You mentioned the all star cast they put together for this. How did that all come about? Yeah. And you know, it took years to put this together. So originally I knew a couple guys in the industry, Dirty Bob. He’s actually here in Ohio with me. He lives up by Columbus, I believe. I’m since nine. So we were only a couple hours away from each other. Never even, you know, I had never met him before. You see, he knew Joel and he knew a couple other people. And when he found out I was doing a game like this, he’s like, let me help. He’s like, just let me put you in contact with a couple people. And I said, okay, that sounds great. And there was also another man by the name of Don Juan de Marco. He found out what I was doing and Don loved what I’m doing because he’s like, man, we need more people like you trying to break in the mainstream. And he says, I know a couple of girls. Let me put you in touch with them. And I just started talking with people. And what I did, Bruce, is and it was, you hate to tell people no. And that like, okay, I’ve spoke with a lot of people, but you have to whittle that list down. And you know, when you’re whittling it down, you’re not being negative to the people who didn’t make the cut. You’re just trying to do the best thing for the game, for the company, for whatever it is you’re doing, right? And Blake Blossom, she is just such a sweetheart. She’s so nice. She’s got so much going on right now. I mean, she won four IVian awards. She’s everywhere. She’s doing like the actual bronze, really neat cosplay parody stuff. Like I think she plays the Gwyn. She played Gwyn on that like Spider-Man parody and there’s some other stuff she’s doing. She’s all over the place, but she takes the time to text me and talk to me on the phone, right? And I like that. You know, it shows me she’s not flaky. And then you got somebody like Jewel Denial, who’s done it all. She’s been everywhere, you know, and it’s like, I can offer her something nobody’s ever offered her. Let me immortalize you in a video game and you’re playing yourself. And the same thing with Kiki. She’s so laid back. She reminds me a lot of myself. We grew up, see, that’s the thing about it too. It’s a generational thing too, Bruce. And you find someone who grew up around like Kiki did with myself. We watched the same shows as a kid. We were watching 90210 when we were 13, right? We were listening to the same songs and you kind of just have that generational bond. And then with Nikki, she was a good fit for the first game. I spoke with her on the phone. We fit, we met up and I flew out to Cincinnati. We did our stuff and it worked out and I wanted to bring her back because each one of these girls in the game, they present their own personality. And that’s what I’m trying to do and actually mentioned it earlier. I want them playing themselves. And that’s why this is the first time that’s ever happened because if you think back, and I know you’re not a big gamer, but for some of the listeners out there, pretty much everybody is Grand Theft Auto. That’s like one of the biggest game series of all time. Well, in Vice City, they had Jenna Jamison in their game, but she played a fictional character. Her name was Candy Sucks. She was a porn star in the game. But so she was playing a character. She wasn’t herself. You couldn’t play her. She just had a very, very small role in the game. She set her lines. And because it was a porn star, they got a porn star actress to do the voiceover, which is fine. You know, rock stars as big as it gets, you know, they can do what they want. And that was a great part for her. But what I’m offering these girls, it’s like, don’t come in here and play somebody else. You girls are amazing like you are. Play yourself. And then we market that to everybody else out there. And this isn’t a sex game. I should have said that up earlier. This is a legitimate game because here’s the thing. There’s nothing wrong with like a sex game. What I mean is like a point of view where like you just turn it on and you’re not actually playing a video game. You’re just playing like a like almost like a VR session because VR is very big now. And Blake actually won a lot of VR awards and I respect that. It’s amazing. But this isn’t VR. This is a full fledged leisure suit Larry throwback kind of a game. It’s placed just like a leisure suit Larry from the late 80s there in 90s. So it’s a mainstream game. I mean, we’re going to be a Nintendo switch kind of a thing. And we’re starting off on steam. And if I water it down a little bit, we could even hit PlayStation and Xbox to see, you know, they won’t allow some of the nudity that we have in there and some of the jokes because we do tell the fun jokes. I like to say what other people are thinking. That’s when you know it’s funny when somebody goes, oh my God, that’s hilarious, but I would have never said that. But yeah, so it was just neat. It was it was making these connections. It was speaking with people like Don Juan de Marcos speaking with people like dirty Bob and having people believe in what I’m doing and saying, hey, you should talk to this person. And through these girls, I’ve known a lot more people, you know, and it keeps building and building and that’s kind of what I’m doing. Absolutely. You had a successful Kickstarter last year for Retro Knockout. Are you planning another crowdfunding project for this one? And believe I am. And this is a tough one because I’m indie company and the true sense of indie. I mean, there was a game for like three, they were out for the best indie game of the year and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way because they marked themselves as indie, but they had a publisher that had millions of dollars behind them. So it’s kind of like and even in the adult film industry, Bruce, even in real movies like Hollywood, you know, I can ask you what makes it indie? Is it the money? Is it the exposure? Is it a one man company like mine that comes out of nowhere? So there’s kind of like blurred lines on what indie is, but I can tell you I’m indie because I got nothing. Like as far as funding goes, I don’t have any angel investors and I don’t have a publisher. Although I do have some publishers that are interested right now and who knows, I might sign with a publisher. But when you do something like that, and this is really important, now I answer to somebody. Now they have a say and if this joke is told, they have a say on what happens here. So it’s like, do I give up creative control? Because this is my baby. This is my life. Something tells me you won’t unless you find a publisher who’s on the same page as you. Exactly and that’s the tough part because the mainstream publishers hate what I’m doing. I’m bringing these girls in the main and see, here’s what I hate. And I want to say this real quick. I’m going to middle this question here. Video games are not meant for children. Okay. Video games for everybody. That’s why there’s a rating system. It’s called the ESRB and in Europe, it’s called the Peggy 16. And they rate the game. If you get a mature rated game or adult, that means kids can’t buy it. It’s no different than watching a movie that’s rated R or watching a movie that’s rated G. They make movies for kids. They make movies for adults. But there are so many people, Bruce, that’s locked in that gaming for kids. I can’t believe you’d put a porn star in a game. You’re the devil. Like, no, I’m not. I’m not, but I play one in game. Exactly. I was letting you have that joke. I almost said. Yes, I’m all for keeping things out of the kids hands, which is why I make sure that everything’s rated properly. I make sure that there’s the proper gates and place to get to it to buy it. Right. You know, but that’s not even my job. I do it, but like, it’s the job of the rating system. It’s the job of the platform. It’s the job of Nintendo. It’s the job of steam. So, you know, that’s all put in place. And it’s upsetting when you hear all that kind of stuff because it’s like, I’m not making a game for a 10 year old and I’m not marketing it to a 10 year old. Mine is mature adults. But the thing is, if they’ve got the money, then they’re going to they’re going to have their clout. Yeah. And see, that’s where the publisher comes in is that some of them will be like, Hey, we’ll give you $300,000, but this is how it’s going to go. You know, I mean, that sounds great. Like I don’t want to look at it as selling out because I’m still creating this and it’s still mine. But if I find the good marriage between my company and a publisher, I’ll do it. But and I’ll say this, if I do it, you know, I haven’t given up full creative control because it’s very, very important to me to keep this as it should be. So yes, we’re going to do a Kickstarter probably later on this spring, early summer, maybe because that way we’ll have Blake and Jewel and all the girls and we’re going to, we’ll do our recordings. We’re going to do a couple of videos for it. So we’re going to do another Kickstarter where everybody can pledge and really helps my company out, but it doesn’t go to me. It’s, you know, it’s not my hooker and cocaine money, right? You know, that’s set aside for something. This is to get everybody paid because you get a figure. I am a one man show. Everybody’s contracted out. I’m the sole owner of vanilla gaming company, but I have programmers, animators, artists. You know what I mean? Across the board, people who create the trailers, everybody who works on the audio creates the songs, the actresses all get paid obviously for what. Yes, there’s a lot of people to pay. So when you do something like a Kickstarter, like last year we came in just under $20,000 and some people like $20,000, that’s nothing. But I’m like, you know what? When you’re a true indie creator like I am, $20,000 is going to get a lot of stuff paid for, right? I mean, that’s going to just totally pay for a lot of people’s work. And I always try to pay people immediately. Like my artist, when he sends me something, the process is, his name is Oleg. Oleg will send in the art for the game. I’ll look it over and I will either approve it or say, hey, let’s change this or make this different the same day. If it’s good, Bruce, I pay him before that day’s over. It’s not every two weeks. It’s not at the end of the week. I will send him a payment because I want them to work with me, right? I want them to say, hey, Vanilla’s a good guy. Like I like this company. I like getting paid when I send my invoices for my consulting clients. I definitely pay my vendors, my blog writers, my podcast editor, et cetera. I pay the people when I get the invoice because that’s just how I roll. Yeah. And it’s good. Yeah. Oh, it is. It absolutely is. You know, you mentioned a little bit of how Mystery King is going to be different from your first game. Now, who’s your target audience for this one? That’s going to be anyone alive over the age of 18. But really the target audience is I’m still looking for the retro gamer, like the guys who grew up with Leisure Suit Larry. You know, they were around in the 80s and the 90s, which is why I got someone like Blake, who’s 23 years old. I believe she is maybe 24. So she can appeal to the younger audience. But then we got like a jewel and a kiki who was around in the early 2000s or the late 90s. How are we going to look at it? And so like we have girls in there that’s interesting, but the gameplay in the game itself is going to, you know, specifically appeal and an audience who doesn’t want to bother with online gameplay and idiots being fools online and cheaters and hackers. Because, you know, like a lot of people play like Call of Duty and stuff right now. And that’s fine. I mean, I play online games too. I’ve been playing a lot of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre game, which is an online game, a lot of fun. But man, people were ruined your experience because they come in and they cheat and they hack and they’re just, you know what I mean? It’s so frustrating. You just want to put the controller down and walk away. So my audience is those guys that still enjoy a single player experience to where they can sit down, grab a beer or, you know, your favorite beverage of choice and say, Hey, I just want to laugh. Like show me a good time. You know what I mean? That’s my audience. It’s men and women both because it’s not just men. There’s a lot of women and a lot of women gamers out there now. It’s like, Hey, if you just want to have a good time and laugh and play something that you probably have never seen before, but it’s lighthearted, there’s nothing heavy in the game, right? Like we said in the beginning, we’re not getting into politics. We’re not getting into religion. We’re not getting on to this divisive stuff and all these things that are going around in the world. I know these things are going on in the world and there’s a proper time and place to talk about them, but they’re not in my games. This is about having fun. Not in my podcast either. Good. Good on you. Let’s enjoy ourselves. Exactly. Let’s sit down and have a good time. And that’s what the games are all about is just laughing and just, you know, kind of thinking, using your brain a little bit to figure out some of these puzzles and having a good time, kind of like the old Tomb Raider games were. I don’t know if you remember those Lara Croft and that they were puzzle games. You would go into like these tombs, but you would have to like, like Indiana Jones, you know, Indiana Jones. That game was pretty much based on Indiana Jones. Well, this is a similar experience. You know, you just go into it and you say, how can I get past these puzzles and figure this stuff out and have a good time? Back to having a good time. That’s what life is all about. You’re the first company to bring adult film stars into mainstream gaming. We talked about that earlier. What are some of the challenges you faced or are facing doing that? Well, and I didn’t actually touch on slow, but the gaming industry, the mainstream gaming industry, their discrimination is still through the roof. It’s just, it’s, it’s amazing. And, and, you know, I won’t get into that same point again about everybody thinking it’s for kids, but that’s a big point of this. And, you know, I can tell you, Bruce, I was speaking with one marketer, you know, a while back and we had a great conversation and a great interview, just like me and you were doing now. And I was looking for somebody to help market the game and stuff. And it went really well. And in a couple of days go by and I just shoot an email like, Hey, I just let you know I’m doing this this weekend or whatever. But, you know, I’m looking forward to hearing what you got to say, blah, blah, blah. You know, he gets back to me and he’s like, you know, I spoke with my car and I love that he said it this way. He said, I spoke to someone by, I don’t know if he said colleagues or coworkers, whatever he said there. He said, and then he made a point to say both men and women and parentheses. He’s like, and I just don’t feel like it would be a good fit for us because of the girls in the game, you know, and then he’s like, but I love what you’re doing. You know what I mean? I love what you’re doing and it’s going to be such a great success, but we’re not going to put our name associated with you because you’re associated with the girls and I’m still getting that to this day. Marketers is a big one. You know, they won’t work with me. And here’s the thing, you know, Retro Knockout has great reviews online. If you look at it, go there and look at it right now where, where I think very positive or, you know, there’s different categories. I think we get like one negative comment for every 20 positive, something like that. You know what I mean? And what do you mean by marketers? Like people that I can go to that’s going to tell the world, hey, look at this game. It exists. Go play it. Well, I can tell you there’s a company called Adobe to be marketing, which I also happen to own and we don’t discriminate. So anyway, go ahead. Well, and that’s great. But I was sorry. And hey, and if we can work together, we definitely will. I’ll tell you that because I don’t mind sharing a piece of the pie because we all make money, but I’m at the mainstream gaming side. The people that has the, here’s the thing. I need to work with someone who has an insider on like IGN. I get it. I need, like they have to just be able to send a story to a person that they know. And we know that story is going to get ran. That’s what’s so important. Or Rock Paper Shotgun or PC game or monthly, whatever it’s going to be. We need to know that I’m working with someone and I’m not paying them money. Only for them to come back and say, oh, we got shut down here. We got no, like, if I’m paying you, you need to do your job. Well, it sounds like you need public relations, but to do public relations, nobody’s going to charge you by what gets run. They’re going to charge you by the work they do. So just be aware of that. Yeah. And then we have, and you know, since 2020, I’ve worked with a couple of people and that’s how it’s been. But what I’m saying is don’t take me on and then come back and say, oh, we didn’t get to do anything at all. $4,000, please, sir. You know what I mean? Like that kind of a deal because like they realized, oh, nobody wants to run a story about a game that has adult film stars in it because those girls are evil. You know, they’re from hell. We’re not allowed to talk about them. And it’s ridiculous. You’re preaching to the choir here, myself and also my listeners, both retro KO and mystery kink are under the vanilla beast gaming franchise. Now, do you have a plan to end that eventually? And what’s your end game? Yeah. So like you had mentioned in the beginning there, that these are kind of a story of my life. And what I’ve done is I’ve taken, I like, what I like to say, Bruce, is it’s true fictional events. A lot of this stuff really happened. Now, did it happen that way? Yeah. Maybe, you know, like when you had a really cool story, when you were younger, and maybe you got together with a girl and maybe you did a few things, maybe you didn’t, but when you told the story, you sure did them. It was much better. Exactly. So that’s what these games are about. It’s a little bit of making fun of my own life because I’ve done some crazy things. Gone. I’ve been in some wonky situations, right? And I’m trying to add that and my love for great movies, like great 90s movies and current movies, horror movies and stuff. And I’m, I’m, I’m adding in there. So the franchise, which is why the vanilla beast, which we already went over how that came from, which is why the vanilla beast is on it because these are all franchise now retro knockouts introduces you to vanilla and UK, which is a real person UK is actually a man in Scotland. He’s a legitimate Scottish guy that I’ve been friends with many, many, many years. And he’s hilarious because there’s a silly stuff he says and how he acts. So I’m like, you know what, I’m putting you in my games and he loves it. Right. So right now we have about four games planned. So mystery kink will be game number two. There’ll be another game, which we can’t talk about. And the last game is actually already on steam. It’s called vanilla beast ace in the hole. And ace in the hole is kind of the end game. Think of ace in a hole as the Avengers movie, because if you remember, they came out with Captain America separately, Iron Man, Thor, right? They introduced you separately to each character. And then you got to love them. You love Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow. You love the Hawk. And then the Avengers came together and brought everybody together in one cool movie. I’m doing the same thing. I’m going to make three, maybe four separate games, telling different stories. And ace in a hole is going to bring them all together to where if you played those games and you wouldn’t have to play the games, but it would have made a lot of sense to because as their introduction stories, and then you’ll see, and it’ll be kind of a throwback game where it’s its own game, it’s open world. It’s got its own story. It’s like vanilla later in his life. But you’ll go to like, you’ll sit down and be thinking back and you’ll have a flashback from an actual level to one of the earlier games, which nobody’s really doing that either, which I think is an awesome idea because people can be like, oh, I remember playing this and then that muscle memory will come back. And it’ll just like, boom, but it’s going to kind of mesh genres, you know, different art styles together, different levels. So yeah, there is an end game that might not happen till 20, 20, 20, 30, actually, because if you fair as 20, 24 now, it takes about one or two years per game. So Mystery King is set for the end of this year. I’m hoping for October. I can’t set that yet because we got a lot of work to do. But yeah, if we can do it right by the end of the 2020s here, we can have the end game out. And then from that point, you see how well you’ve done, how people have liked it. And then you kind of go from there. If you try to do a prequel or another, you know what I mean? I hate sequels that have no business being made. Right? You know what I mean? It’s like, oh, God, it’s like you guys made all that money and then you made another movie and it’s just like Highlander. Highlander is such a great movie. And then Highlander two is what? You brought him back like, oh, come on. You know what I mean? So I’ll try to do it the smart way, not the stupid Hollywood way. Exactly. Hollywood is just all about show me the money. Lots of your games and your work in general are comedy. parody is your favorite, it seems. Is that just baked into everything you do? Well, I actually was a comedian early in my life. I did stand up comedy as a teen in the late 90s. I wasn’t even old enough to get into the club yet, but I was on stage doing it. And I was 19 and 1999 because I guess I was born in 80s. This is actually kind of simple to remember. So you figure in 98, 99, I was graduating high school there, you know, 18 and 18 years old and whatnot. And I was actually the one stand up comedy. I met some great stand up comedians. I remember hanging out with Mitch Hedberg at like 16, 17 years old. And that was such he was such a good comedian, unfortunately, he passed away, but he was such a good comedian. And and I learned a lot from these guys. So how many has this kind of been my thing always? Like I’ve just been the guy that can make anybody laugh. You know what I mean? Like when I was younger and high school, I could pretty much sit at anybody’s table and be welcome because I can make you laugh. Right. I mean, comedy goes so I mean, look at Roger Rabbit. That’s how he got Jessica, right? He ain’t going to get Jessica unless he can make her laugh. You’re not getting that hot unless you get the comedy. So and you know, and I love movies, 90 stuff. I mean, when I sit down and I write or I’m working on the game, I will put on a movie. I probably watched 50 times at least. I mean, I’ll put on Teen Wolf while I’m working. I’ll put on Roadhouse with I mean, it was and you know, they’re remaking that too. I shouldn’t have ruined the podcast. I just mentioned that Jake Gillon was at Jake Gyllenhaal is playing Dalton. You believe that it’s about to come out like in the next little bit. I know this year, like in the next couple of months, they’re redoing Roadhouse. And it’s like I like the original. So I’ll be watching Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse. I’ll be watching Caddy Shack. I love Caddy Shack. See, because it keeps me in the right frame. It keeps me out of what’s going on around me because, you know, it’s tough to write and create something that you’re calling a throwback if you’re in a 2024 frame of mind. So I’ll watch these movies and I’ll have them playing in the background as I’m writing and I’m laughing like 16 candles even. I ain’t ashamed to say it. I like Molly Ringwald, man. I love it. Oh, one of my favorites. I love that that’s that part in the movie when Molly Ringwald or a friend are like in the shower and they look she’s like, oh, I wish you had a body. And it goes boing and shows the titties on screen. Remember, you know, that’s a PG movie or PG 13. Like, you know, I mean, it’s so funny, but it’s like as a kid, that’s so funny. And then Long Dong, Long Dong Chong or whatever it was, Long Dong. Long Dong Silver was a was a porn star. So yeah, sorry. Yeah. Right. No, it was Long Long. Long Duck Dong. Long Duck Dong. I’m glad we get that right. I wouldn’t have been asleep and I had to Google that. Long Duck Dong. Like that’s just good comedy. So I have those on in the background. And so, yeah, it is baked in because I just want to make great games that bring people along for the trip. Right. It’s just fun games that just bring everybody right along with it. There you go. Well, sounds like you’re doing a great job of it. Neil, I’d like to thank you for being our guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk. And I hope we’ll get a chance to do this again soon. Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me on, Bruce. I appreciate it. I always love being here. And I look forward to being able to hopefully give you some good news soon. I hope so, too. My broker tip today is part two of what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later. Last week, we talked about converting traffic and improving user experience. Make a good offer. If you’re selling something and the offer isn’t good, you won’t make money. It’s plain and simple as that. And if your offer is to contact you or to get more information, then make the offer attractive and easy to understand. If you’re selling something, make buying easy. Show them an easy way to buy and then leave. Help them by making suggestions on what to buy. Amazon.com is the best at this. They always have suggestions on what to buy based on your buying and browsing history. They use AI to do this. There are AI engines available these days at a modest cost. Look into this if you can. Don’t clutter up your site with unnecessary items, buttons and images. Keep it as simple as possible. The best and most successful sites are the simple ones, the ones that lead you to take the action you’d like them to take. It’s not that hard. Just remember when you’re putting together any site, try to think through the buying process like a human being. Whatever you do, don’t turn over that process to your designer. Don’t just say, build me a website. What you’ll get out the other end will not give you what it is you’re looking for. Give them as much direction as possible and make it easy for them to build a site for you that makes your business succeed. We’ll talk about this subject more next week. And next week we’ll be speaking with Asia Duncan of the Cupcake Girls. And that’s it for this week’s Adultsite Broker Talk. I’d once again like to thank my guest, Neil Herrin, of Vanilla Gaming Company. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I’m Bruce Friedman. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]